My Only Destiny
by animomma
Summary: Lucy realizes she loves her best friend, but how does he feel about her? Miscommunication was the real enemy. Smut fic loosely based on the lyrics of "The Show Must Go On Pt 1 and 2" by Famous Last Words
1. Chapter 1

Lucy pursed her lips, looked at her reflection in the mirror, and sighed. This was her third outfit change, and she still wasn't convinced. Nothing looked right: not the knee-high black boots; not the cute, frilly skirt that came to her mid-thigh; not the bright pink crop top; not the matching pink ribbon that held her hair in a side ponytail high on her head; not the makeup artfully painted on her face. After another critical glance at her reflection up and down, she gave one last sigh and turned away to get her keys. Why was she worrying so much about her appearance, anyway? She was just meeting up with Natsu. But what he'd said to her at the guild yesterday kept replaying in her head. She could picture his face now, with that sweet grin, as he exclaimed, "Hey, Luce, let's do something together tomorrow! I'll meet you outside your apartment tomorrow morning, ok? I have something to show you!" He had been so filled with childish delight, that Lucy had only been able to return his contagious grin and agree to his plan. She had such a hard time saying no to that happy face.

Now, here she was, worrying about what to wear. As she went out her door, she felt a small flutter in her stomach. What the heck was that?, she thought to herself. It's only Natsu! He probably just wants to take me to a new buffet or something. Relax! But she had a hard time doing that, and she felt another little flip as she came down the stairs and saw Natsu waiting for her with that same innocent grin.

"Hey, Lucy!" Natsu greeted her with a wave. "Ready to go?"

Lucy smiled fondly in response. "Yeah, sure! Let's go!"

Natsu turned around and started walking, and Lucy automatically fell in beside him. Their steps didn't match beats, as his legs were longer than hers, but they were undeniably synchronized in spite of that. As they started along, Lucy asked, "So where are you taking me?"

Natsu gave a small smile and replied, "Nice try, Luce. You'll have to wait until we get there."

His words made a little bit of warmth rush to her cheeks. What is wrong with me?, she wondered. This kind of thing had been happening more and more frequently around Natsu lately, and she couldn't fathom why. Little flutters, shivers up her spine, heat in her face–and no real reason for any of it. Well, maybe today would give her some clues about the meaning of it all.

Lucy walked along, gradually slowing down as she was lost in these thoughts, when she suddenly crashed into the solid back of the pink-haired man in front of her. Luckily, Natsu turned around in time to catch her, saying, "Whoa, watch out there! You ok?"

Lucy nodded without saying anything, very aware of his hands on her.

Natsu beamed at her and said, "Good! Because we're here!"

At this, Lucy snapped back to reality and took stock of their surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a seldom-frequented shopping avenue, in front of a shop that she didn't recognize. Gilded lettering on the door and display window identified it as a book store. Lucy gasped in surprise and then squealed, "Oooh, Natsu, how did you find this place? I had no idea a new book shop was opening around here!

Natsu smiled sheepishly and pointed at the building next door. "Happy and I were checking out that new restaurant, and I saw this here. I knew you'd want to take a look."

Lucy let out a laugh. She hadn't been too far off the mark, after all.

As they stepped into the cool interior of the shop, they were greeted with the heady smell of paper and binding glue. Lucy inhaled appreciatively. This scent always smelled like home to her. She quickly scanned the shelves, reading the labels on the ends to find the section she wanted, ducking down her chosen aisle. She settled down to peruse the books at her leisure, hardly noticing that Natsu was heading deeper into the shop.

After several minutes, Lucy felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to see her friend beaming happily at her with a smile that made her heart skip a beat. Why now?, she silently questioned. Then she noticed that one of Natsu's hands was still behind his back. "What do you have?" she asked, perplexed at what he could possibly find to interest him in a book store.

Never losing his grin, Natsu replied, "Your real surprise!"

As Lucy was trying to puzzle out the meaning of this statement, he drew his hand around from behind his back, revealing a large, worn red volume latticed with silver filigree on the spine. Lucy sucked in a sharp breath as she read the title: "A Compact History of Dragons and Their Magic! Natsu, how on earth did you find this? And how did you remember that I've been looking for it?"

Lucy was too busy staring at the faded letters to notice the softened look that Natsu directed at her. "Hey, give me some credit! I listen to you a lot more than you think! You wanted to do some research into dragons, right? I remember you mentioning that this book was hard to find, so when we came in to check out the store, I asked the shop owner if he had it. He held on to it for me until I could get you here to pick it up. I'm glad you like it!"

At these words, Lucy glanced up at her dragon slayer friend, just in time to catch the last of the tender glance that Natsu's face held. Seeing it on the face of the handsome man in front of her, she completely forgot about the prized book in her hands as she was hit by a realization that struck her as forcefully as lighting, effectively knocking the wind out of her.

She was in love with Natsu Dragneel.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy tried desperately to gasp in air, feeling as if a giant fist was clutched around her middle.

In love? With Natsu? MY Natsu? What? Her thoughts swirled around in a violent tempest as she reeled at the new knowledge she had just gained. When the hell did this happen? Lucy felt like she was in a haze. All she could do was stare at the face in front of her, framed by a light from one of the book store's wall sconces.

Natsu noticed the odd look on her face, and his brow flickered as he asked, "Hey, Luce, are you ok? Do you not like the book or something?"

Lucy finally managed to pull herself out of her daze. "Uh, no! I...I l-love it, Natsu! Thank you so much!"

Natsu's grin was back now. "Good! I like making you happy."

Before Lucy had time to do anything other than gape at him, she heard a small voice coming from behind Natsu. "Hey, there you two are! I've been looking all over for you! Natsu, we're going to that restaurant again, right?"

Natsu turned around to face Happy, who had just flown into the shop. "Yo! Sure, buddy, we can go there as soon as Lucy's done looking in here." At this, Happy groaned, "But I don't wanna wait in this boring store!"

Lucy, glad to not be alone with Natsu just then, rushed to say, "Oh, it's ok, Happy, I was done looking anyway. I'm just going to pay for a few books and then we can go." As she made a movement to get up, Lucy saw a hand extend into her field of vision, and looked up to see Natsu at the other end of it, offering his help. Lucy blushed, looked away, and hurriedly scrambled to her feet without taking the proffered hand. She scurried to the desk with her purchases, too quickly to see Natsu's disappointed look at her rejection.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and, thankfully, Happy stayed with them. Lucy didn't think she could handle being alone with Natsu any more that /Lying awake in her bed that night, she finally had the chance to thoroughly examine her reactions to her best friend and what they might mean. I can't really be in LOVE with him, thought Lucy. I mean, he's crude, aggressive, and clueless about almost everything! A small part of her whispered that maybe she was upset that he was clueless about love, but she quickly brushed aside that voice. It's just not possible, she reiterated instead. Just because I've been feeling flustered around him lately doesn't mean that I love him! And wanting to touch him is just...because I'm missing my parents more lately. It has absolutely nothing to do with any feelings I may have for a certain crazy dragon slayer!

But the farther her thoughts traveled down that road, the more she realized that it was a complete lie that she was telling to herself. She let out a frustrated huff of air, and mentally yielded to the epiphany she had received earlier in the day. I love him, she thought, with both surprise and resignation. I really do love /The more she thought about it, the more Lucy realized that she must have loved Natsu for a long time without really knowing it. Ever since she had first met him, she had always been unconsciously drawn to him. Sure, he was a rash idiot, but that was only half of him. Nobody cared more about his friends and his guildmates (although he didn't see any difference between the two), and he'd do anything to help them out. He had always taken care of Lucy, physically and emotionally, since the day they'd met. Lucy couldn't remember a time when she hadn't felt watched over by Natsu, and how safe that made her feel. Hell, she'd even leapt off a building because she knew that he'd be there to catch her! That kind of trust didn't happen with just anybody.

Lucy kept turning this new knowledge over and over in her mind. I love Natsu. I love him. I love him. I love him...until, exhausted from her swirling emotions, she finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning she awoke, feeling like she hadn't slept at all. As soon as she was awake, her mind started working again right where it had left off the night before. Shit! I really love Natsu Dragneel! What the hell am I going to do about this? She stared up at her ceiling as she tried to puzzle out her next move. Should I tell him? Maybe he feels the same way? Lucy quickly dismissed this thought, however. No, there's no way. He's seen me naked more than once, and never had any reaction like the guys in books. In fact, he never does any of the things those guys do. He never compliments me, or stares at me, or opens doors for me, or anything. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she grudgingly admitted to herself, No, Natsu has never shown any sign of having feelings for me other than friendship. She couldn't contain a small, glum sigh at this thought, but she quickly tried to brush it off and attend to more pressing matters.

What am I going to do?, she wondered almost frantically. He's going to know! As soon as he sees me, he's going to know how I feel! Then he'll either feel sorry for me, or avoid me, or make fun of me. What if he's so uncomfortable he doesn't want to see me anymore? Or go on missions? What if he...she took a deep, steadying breath. Slow down there, Lucy, she coached herself. He doesn't have to know anything. He's clueless, remember? He'll probably never notice. And plus, this is probably just a phase. If I ignore it, I'm sure I won't feel the same after a while. Lucy once again ignored that niggling voice that said that her feelings wouldn't go away so easily, and that maybe she didn't want them to. All I have to do is go to the guild as usual, and act like everything's ok. Nothing has to change, as long as I act like nothing has happened.

After half an hour of similar pep talk, she finally convinced herself to get out of bed, get dressed, and walk to the guild hall. She stopped outside the entrance, took a final moment to steel herself, and opened the doors.

As soon as she walked in, Happy noticed her and flew over, with a greeting cry of, "Lucy!"

Lucy smiled what she hoped was a relaxed smile and replied, "Hey, Happy! Any jobs for us today?"

Apparently noticing nothing wrong with her demeanor, Happy answered, "Yeah, Natsu found a good one for us! I think you'll like it, it involves books!"

The mention of books piqued Lucy's interest enough to help her feel normal until she saw Natsu's pink head weaving through the guild hall in their direction. Her heart immediately skipped into a quick pace that she was sure the keen-eared dragon slayer would notice. Thankfully, if he did, he made no mention of it, instead greeting her with a cheerful, "Hey, Luce!"

Lucy mustered up a smile for her best friend, and answered, "Hi, Natsu. Happy says you have a job?"

Natsu smiled and said, "Yeah, it's finding a rare book for someone! You in?"

His smile, if anything, quickened her pulse even more, as she replied, "Sure! I need to pay my rent somehow."

Natsu beamed and grabbed her hand. "Great, let's go!"

Lucy was positive that her heart could now outrun Jet in a foot race.

How the hell was she going to survive this mission?


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy somehow managed to survive not only the mission, but the next several weeks. She was proud that Natsu didn't notice her perpetually red face, her pounding heart, or the trembling that claimed her whole body whenever he touched her. In fact, she couldn't help but notice, he acted the same way he always had; like her best friend. She slowly concluded that he had no romantic feelings for her whatsoever.

It's ok, she tried to tell herself. I don't really care that he doesn't feel that way for me. I can hardly expect him to notice me romantically. There's no way he'd be interested in me like that. I doubt that this crush will last much longer, anyway, and I don't want to lose my best friend over some fading attraction. But no matter how many times she tried to tell herself that, there was still that tiny voice inside of her insisting that she knew her feelings wouldn't go away, and that she wished that Natsu would notice her...that maybe there was something she could do to make him notice her. As always, she quickly stifled this voice as soon as she noticed it, and tried to continue on as if everything was the same it had always been. Still, she couldn't help but fantasize about Natsu catching her hand with both of his and bending over to give it a light kiss. Or about him brushing his hand softly over her cheek, trailing his fingers away from her face gracefully. Or about him staring deep into her eyes through his own half-lidded ones as he professed his love to her.

Lucy sighed as she stirred her tea, trying to shake herself out of one of these daydreams. She was sitting at one of the tables on the newly-opened patio of the bookstore that Natsu had taken her to. It had become a favorite place for her lately. She couldn't help but think of the shop as a special present that he had given just to her, since he had gone out of his way to take her there so she would be happy. Just being there made her feel closer to her dragon slayer than she ever would have dared to actually get.

As she sat and made vague attempts to enjoy her tea, she was unaware of the watching gaze of an attractive young man nearby. He observed her for a while before running a hand briskly through his short green hair, getting up, and making his way over to her table.

Lucy was in the middle of another fantasy. In this one, Natsu gently grasped her shoulders and drew her close to him, pressing his lips gently to hers–

"Hello, there!"

Lucy started, flushing with the embarrassment of being caught in the middle of her thoughts, before looking around to meet the steady brown eyes of the young man standing in front of her. He smiled and continued, "My name's Renard. Is it ok if I sit down?" Lucy nodded, and he slid into the seat next to her with grace that belied his tall frame.

"I was hoping I could ask you some questions about your book." He indicated the worn red volume that was never very far from Lucy when she wasn't working lately.

Lucy reflexively stroked the spine of the book lovingly. "Oh! Of course! My friend found this for me recently! He knew that I was doing research on dragons, and that I wanted to read this book," Lucy responded with a radiant smile at the memory.

Renard didn't miss the obvious tenderness in her voice. "Oh, is he your boyfriend?"

Lucy, startled at this question, began to deny it, but stopped herself. I don't know this guy. I've never seen him before, and probably will never see him again. What could be the harm in living out a fantasy a little bit? Having come to this conclusion, Lucy drew herself up a bit and replied, "Yeah, he's such a great boyfriend!"

"Ah, I see," Renard answered, with a flicker of what might have been disappointment. "Oh, I didn't catch your name, by the way?"

"I'm sorry! It's Lucy."

"Well, Lucy, is it ok if I ask you a bit about the book? It's just such a rare find!"

"Sure, what do you want to know?"

"Everything!" Renard exclaimed with obvious enthusiasm. "I think I'm most interested in their families and child rearing practices. Did the father stay with the mother and the baby? Or was is just the mother? Or maybe the babies were self-reliant? How long did it take the offspring to reach adulthood?"

Lucy laughed. "Slow down, one question at a time! Well, I don't know how much I can tell you about that. This book mostly focuses on their history, types of dragons, and their magic. Although not enough to be useful to wizards wanting to learn about it. It does mention a bit about families, though. Yeah, the father and mother raised the babies together. And since dragons live so much longer than humans, their childhood was a lot longer than you might expect, a few decades. The hatchlings would stay with the parents until adolescence, when they could fend for themselves. Because hatchlings took so much effort and time to raise, adult dragons would mate for life to care for them, and valued their young very highly."

"Really? I never would have guessed that, based on all the legends and tales of dragons that have been passed down," remarked Renard. "I never would have thought that they could care that much for another being."

Lucy, recognizing in his eyes the same passion for knowledge she had, smiled and answered, "They cared very deeply about their families! In fact, it usually took a dragon a very long time to find a mate that they were satisfied with, so there was a lot of ritual and ceremony involved in selecting a mate. For example, when the male–"

Her words were cut off by a hand descending on her shoulder. Lucy jumped up, emitting a small screech. She whipped around to see Natsu, his handsome face arranged in a vaguely hostile look. "Oh! Natsu, you scared the hell out of me!" she reprimanded.

His eyes flicked to her face, and he gave her a smile that she immediately saw was forced, as he answered, "Sorry, Luce, didn't mean to scare you. Who's your friend?" The word "friend" was laced with the hint of a threat, something that the other man didn't seem to miss. They stared each other down for a second, with an unmistakably hostile look, until Renard broke the standoff by rising out of his seat. He drew himself up to his full height, which was a good few inches over Natsu, and extended his hand, saying, "I'm Renard. Lucy and I were just talking about that fascinating book she has. Are you the one who found it for her?"

A wave of terror washed over Lucy as she recalled what she had told Renard about Natsu earlier. Me and my stupid fantasies! Why did I have to tell him that Natsu and I were dating? I should have known better than to indulge my childish feelings! What the hell am I going to do if he calls Natsu my boyfriend?

Luckily for her, Natsu didn't seem interested in trading words with Renard. "Yeah," he answered shortly, not offering his hand or any other conversation to the green-haired man across from him. He then deliberately broke their eye contact, looking over at Lucy. "Hey, Luce, I came to get you for a job. Are you ready to get going?"

"Oh, uh, sure," Lucy floundered a bit, confused by the obvious tension between the two men.

"Great." Natsu reached out and grabbed Lucy's hand. "Let's go."

Renard broke in smoothly. "Wait a minute. I'd like to ask Lucy something else. Do you mind if she catches up to you when we're done?"

Natsu's eyes flashed fire. "No, I really think we should be going now." Saying this, he tugged at Lucy's hand tightly, and turned to go.

Lucy, shocked at her friend's behavior, yanked her hand out of his and hissed at him under her breath, "Natsu, what is wrong with you? You're making a scene! You'd better knock it off, or the owner won't let me back in here! Go wait outside for me, I'll be out in just a minute." She turned around decisively, hoping that he would follow her direction and leave the shop before anything got destroyed. She didn't think she could bear it if she wasn't allowed to come to her favorite place. Her Natsu place, her heart whispered.

She missed the warning glare that Natsu directed at Renard over her shoulder, before he turned and stormed out to wait for Lucy. "What's up, Renard?" she asked. "I've got to get going to work..."

"Yes, I'm sorry about making a scene," he cut in smoothly. Lucy couldn't help but be impressed that he cared about her embarrassment. "I was just wondering if we could meet again at a different time. I still have so many questions I want to ask you about your book! Maybe later tonight if you're going to be free?"

Lucy was taken a bit aback. She hadn't been expecting this, but she could certainly understand his love of research and books. And, as she had mentioned, it was a very rare book. Probably the only copy in the town, in fact. Well, she reasoned with herself, I'd want someone else to share this book with me if I was in his position. I suppose there's no harm in it. Having decided upon her course of action, she replied, "Sure, tonight should be fine. Do you want to meet back here later?"

Renard gave her a satisfied smile. "That sounds wonderful! Is 8:00 all right?"

"Yeah, sounds good. I'll see you later then," and Lucy turned around and hurriedly left the shop to find her dragon slayer.


	4. Chapter 4

Natsu was livid.

He could not remember being this mad before.

What the hell was Lucy doing with that guy?

Didn't she see the way he had looked at her? Like she was a piece of meat that he couldn't wait to devour. A guy like that didn't deserve to get the time of day from someone as special as Lucy.

Especially since he was the only one allowed to look at her like that.

Stop it, he scolded himself. Lucy doesn't think about me that way. And that's ok. But that doesn't mean that I have to sit back and watch her get ogled by a creep!

Did she just like the guy because he liked books? Natsu could like books too, if he tried. Maybe. And what the hell was that all about, anyway, using the present that HE had given to Lucy as a ploy to get close to her? That pissed him off more than anything. The present that he had painstakingly searched out and secured for her. It had taken untold months of searching, combing through every book shop and second-hand store that he came even close to. And after finally finding one, in a book store that he knew she would love, and seeing her smile, he had felt like he could take on any dark guild in Fiore by himself.

And then, for that moss-headed jackass to use that present to get close to his Lucy–

"Hey, Natsu, thanks for waiting. Ready to get going?"

Natsu turned around to see his partner coming towards him, wearing a concerned look on her face.

Damn. Even with that worried look, she was beautiful. Natsu didn't think he would never get over how stunning she was.

Just one of the reasons he loved her. Even if she didn't return the favor.

He couldn't help it. Seeing her look like that dimmed his anger. "Yeah, Luce. Let's go." They fell into their usual walking rhythm, as Natsu looked over at her and asked, "So what's with the wrinkled forehead?"

Lucy flinched a bit. "What? Wrinkles? What are you talking about?" She smoothed a hand over her forehead, checking for signs of old age that might have magically appeared.

Natsu chuckled in spite of himself. "Nah, I meant you're upset about something, not that you look old. What's up?"

Lucy looked away from him. "Oh. That. I was just thinking about how you seemed so mad at the book store."

Natsu's laugh died on his lips. He grunted noncommittally.

Lucy continued. "Are you mad at me?"

He couldn't hide his smile, albeit a slightly grim one. "Geez, Lucy, why would I be mad at you?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, you just seemed really tense when I was talking to Renard."

He didn't reply for a moment, just kept walking so he could gain enough composure to ask semi-calmly, "Yeah, what's up with that guy?"

Lucy gave a small frown. "Nothing, he was just really interested in my book. He wanted to know about it. It is a really rare book, you know."

Yeah, he knew.

She continued. "He wanted to ask me some more questions about it, so I'll be going back to meet up with him later tonight."

Natsu stopped dead in his tracks and stared after her.

He was wrong. He hadn't been livid before. NOW he was livid.

What. The. Hell.

Ok. Ok, breathe. She has a right to go out with whoever she wants. Even if it is a green-haired idiot who only cares about her cleavage–

Natsu shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it from these thoughts. He didn't own Lucy, she was her own person. She could do what she wanted with whoever she wanted...but why can't it be me? What do I need to do to make her think of me as a possibility too? I mean, sure, I'm a walking disaster sometimes, but I could take care of her. He sighed a little. But she deserves the best. And maybe that's not me. But still! It's definitely not this guy! His fists clenched without him really realizing. I have to do something about this! I can't let her get mixed-up with a pervert when I can offer her so much more...but am I really what's right for her? I just...want her to be happy...here was where his thoughts always inevitably led him. He had been turning this point over in his head for months without a real answer. Was he right for her, since he could love her like nobody else? He was certain of that much, at least. But what if there was another guy out there, smarter than him, who would give her what she wanted instead?

Lucy, meanwhile, had paused to look back at him. "Natsu, what's wrong?"

He snapped out of his silent agony to meet the eyes of the celestial mage who was walking back towards him with worried eyes. She stopped just short of his face, and he felt like all the air had been sucked out of his body as she leaned in to cast a scrutinizing look on his face.

"Are you feeling ok?" she asked, lifting a hand to feel his forehead.

Natsu suddenly saw his opportunity. "Um...well...I'm actually not feeling so hot. Maybe I should just go home, and we can do this job tomorrow."

Natsu didn't miss the shadow that passed over Lucy's eyes. She was always so worried about everyone else. She would take care of the whole damn world personally if she could.

And there's another reason he loved her.

"Well...maybe that would be best," she was saying now. "Do you want me to walk back with you?"

"No, that's ok," Natsu answered hurriedly. He needed some time to think about what to do, some time without her distracting, beautiful presence. "I'll see you tomorrow, Lucy. Have a good time tonight." He turned around and walked away without waiting for an answer, knowing that he couldn't muster up a reaction about her date that she would accept as normal, and he wanted to get out of her presence before she figured out just how much it upset him. He missed her worried eyes staring at his retreating frame for a second longer than they should.

Natsu let his feet take him where they wanted, meandering along the busy streets of town until he looked up and couldn't help but give a crooked smile. Of course, he would go to the guild for help. This place, more than anywhere else...well, except maybe where Lucy was...was home to him. He pushed open the door and looked around the guild hall.

Happy, of course, saw him and flew over immediately. "Hey, Natsu! Did you find Lucy?"

Natsu felt a little stab, but answered, "Yeah, buddy, but she's busy today. We'll go out on our mission tomorrow."

Happy gave his friend a probing look before asking, "Did something happen with her?"

Natsu gave another half-smirk. Of course Happy would notice. "Well...she has a date with some guy later tonight. I saw her with the guy, and I don't like him at all. He was looking at her like...like he wanted to rip into her. I'm just worried."

"And jeaaaalous?"

Natsu glared at him. "Well, yeah! But what am I supposed to do about it?"

Nearby, Lisanna had been sitting with her siblings, half-listening to the conversation. She got up when she heard Natsu's question, and came over. "Hey, boys...I don't mean to intrude, but I think I might be able to help."

Natsu looked at her, and felt a small amount of relief wash over him. If anyone could help him, it would be Lisanna. She was the little sister he'd never had, and could provide valuable insight into the female mind without being judgmental about it. He couldn't help exclaiming, "That would be great, Lisanna! I could really use some help! I just have no idea what I should do about her."

Lisanna gave him a fond smile. "Well, of course you don't! You're clueless!"

Natsu let out a frustrated huff. "You can say that again. So, what do you think? Should I go find the guy and mess him up so he can't go out with her?"

She gave him a horrified look. "Natsu! Absolutely not! That will only make you look like the insane, jealous man that you are! She'd want to defend him against you, and that would just drive her closer to him! Geez, try using your head every once in a while!"

Natsu glared at her. "Well then, Miss Smarty-pants, what do you think I should do?"

Lisanna pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Hmmm...well, I think you should do something that lets her know that you'd rather have her spend time with you than with him. I don't know, maybe some sort of present?"

Natsu looked at her eagerly. "Yeah? Like what?"

Lisanna shrugged. "Flowers or something. You know, things that any girl would like."

He stared at her for a minute, considering this last statement. Finally, he said, "Nah, I don't really know. Why don't you just come help me pick something out? Unless you're busy?"

"Nope! I'd love to help you out!" she responded with a smile.

Natsu suddenly felt elated. He couldn't keep a huge grin off his face as the relief became almost palpable. Lisanna would know what to do! "Come on, Happy, let's go!" he called joyfully, dashing out of the guild hall, leaving Lisanna and Happy laughing and scrambling to catch up with him.

It turned out that Lisanna really did know what girls liked. She led the small group all around town, from one shop to another, until they all started to blend together for Natsu: flower shops, candy shops, clothing stores, on and on. But nothing that Lisanna suggested seemed like it would be a good fit for Lucy. He supposed that made sense, though. Lisanna might know what a typical girl would like, but Lucy was definitely not a typical girl. She was much more special.

Finally, after several hours of unsuccessful shopping, the exhausted trio collapsed onto a bench in front of a concession stand, nibbling at some snacks they had bought there.

Lisanna spoke up first. "Geez, Natsu, what is your problem? There were plenty of great things that we could have picked out of any one of those stores! Why are you so being damn picky?"

Natsu, for once, was too emotionally drained to pick a fight. "Because, Lisanna. It just has to be perfect. It's for Lucy."

"Yeah, you should have seen him when he decided to get her that dragon book," Happy chimed in. "He looked through every book store he could find, and got us kicked out of a lot of them! He was almost frantic to find that book!"

Natsu glared at the Exceed and flicked a peanut at him. "Thanks for sharing, Happy."

Happy caught the nut and ate it. "No problem, sir!"

Lisanna sighed. "Well, that's great, but it doesn't really help us out now. Natsu, can't you think of anything else you'd want to get for her?" She lifted her eyes up, and noticed the store they were sitting across from. She pointed at it, almost wearily, since Natsu had refused to even go in the last few stores she had picked. "How about that one?"

Natsu looked up with an equal amount of fatigue to look at the shop she was indicating. His eyes immediately fell to the display window, and he instantly felt invigorated. "Lisanna, you're a genius!" he exclaimed. He reached down to grab her hand, and yanked her to her feet. "Let's go look! Come on, Happy!" he called over his shoulder, towing Lisanna into the store.

"Aye, sir!"


	5. Chapter 5

Natsu and Happy...and Lisanna?

She snapped out of her paralysis, and darted behind a nearby statue so she could hide and sort out her thoughts.

What was going on? Natsu had said he didn't feel well, and it had certainly seemed true at the time. Ever since he'd come to pick her up from the book store, he'd been edgy and fidgety. She had accepted when he'd said he felt sick, and had gone to browse a few of her favorite stores to kill some time. While she walked, she had been pondering what to do. She was undeniably worried about her pink-haired friend, and had been debating whether she should cancel with Renard. The whole thing with him was seeming more and more like a date the more she thought about it, and she wasn't sure that she was really interested in dating any guy...except for a certain dragon slayer. And besides, if she stood up Renard, she could go over to Happy and Natsu's place to check up on him. If he needed to be taken care of, she would be more than willing to fill that role for him. Maybe that would help him see that she could be good girlfriend material...

She had been in the middle of these thoughts when she had turned down a side avenue and seen the three of them sitting together companionably on a bench, eating snacks and talking. She took another peek at them from her spot behind the statue. They looked...so much like a family.

This thought hit her straight in the gut with the force of a hammer. Had he...had he lied to her so that he could go out with Lisanna? Were they on a date? If so, why would he lie to her about it? It wasn't like he had any obligation to her as a girlfriend, as much as she wished that were true. Then another thought struck her. Maybe...maybe she hadn't been as discreet about her feelings as she thought she had. Maybe Natsu knew exactly how she felt, and he was just too disgusted to tell her that he wasn't interested. He probably saw her as a nuisance he had to get rid of so he could pursue other girls...

Her wild speculation was cut short when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head in time to see Natsu leaping excitedly off the bench, and leaning down to grab onto Lisanna's hand before turning and bolting into a store across the street. Lucy felt her feet moving before she had consciously registered that she was going anywhere. Stealthily, she crept around the statue so she could see the name on the window of the store. When she read it, a cold shiver shot up her spine. A jewelry store. They had gone into a jewelry store. As she was reading the lettering, she could see Natsu through the window. He was gesturing wildly at something in one of the display cases. The store clerk brought out a tray, and Lucy had to sit down when she saw what was on it...rings. Natsu took one out, and grabbed Lisanna's hand again. Lucy watched from what felt like someone else's body as he put the ring onto one of her fingers. She held her hand out, scrutinizing it, before giving an approving nod and smile. Natsu grinned widely, and enveloped the silver-haired girl in an enthusiastic hug.

Lucy was sure she felt the moment that her heart broke. She lost control over her vision, and ran. She ran as hard as she could until she was safely inside her apartment. Sobbing, she threw herself onto her bed and tried to gain some semblance of control over her own body again.

There was no mistaking that. She had seen them shopping together for a ring. A ring that Natsu was giving to Lisanna.

And she had seen how happy he was. His face had teemed with unabashed joy. Remembering it gave her heart a warm touch, one that was both happy to see his happiness, and bitter at that happiness being granted to him by another girl. She didn't think she could be mistaken about that. It must have been an engagement ring. She hadn't been close enough to see for sure which finger he was putting the ring on, but it had definitely been her left hand, and with such a happy face, she couldn't image what else it could have been.

As her reasoning led her to this conclusion, she felt a coldness replace the warm touch that had been on her heart only a moment ago. It was a permeating coldness, that spread unrelentingly through her body. Along with it came the certain knowledge that she had been dreading for months.

Natsu Dragneel did not love her.

Not only did he not love her, he was actively in love with someone else. So much so that he wanted to marry her.

She supposed it only made sense. After all, she had only come into his life because Lisanna had been in Edolas, presumed dead. If she hadn't been, Lucy doubted that Natsu would have ever noticed her at all. It was obvious to everyone that the two of them had shared a special connection since childhood. And sure, he hadn't seemed to pay too much attention to her since she had returned to Earthland, but it was becoming apparent that he had hidden his love life from the prying eyes of his partner.

The coldness had completely spread over Lucy's entire being now, leaving both body and soul numb. For a long time, she stared up at the ceiling, tears streaming steadily and silently down her cheeks.

Finally, her thoughts slowly came back to her. If I really love him, she tried to reason with herself, shouldn't I just want him to be happy? Even if it's not with me? And she certainly couldn't deny her friend's happiness. She had seen it firsthand at the jewelry shop. No. He's happy, and that's enough. For his sake...she could hardly bear to even think the next idea. I...should try to move on. After all, didn't she have the perfect opportunity for that right in front of her? She had a date in just a couple hours, with a handsome guy, too. She certainly couldn't deny Renard's looks. And he was tall, taller than Natsu. He loved books too, which was something she couldn't say about Natsu. He was also gentlemanly, considering her feelings over the confrontation the two men had earlier. Well-spoken, passionate...everything that a girl like Lucy had a right to hope for. But...he's still not Natsu. Lucy promptly did her best to stifle this traitorous thought. Stop! I have to let him go. For his own sake. I have to show him that I'm ok with him finding his own happiness, and the best way I have to do that right now is by trying to make myself happy with Renard.

She forced herself to get up off her bed and start preparing for her date.


	6. Chapter 6

Natsu walked along his well-worn path to Lucy's apartment with a mix of trepidation and excitement. After several hours of searching, they had stumbled across the perfect gift for Lucy out of sheer dumb luck. The second they had entered the jewelry store, Natsu's eye was drawn to one of the rings. He had demanded to see it, and since Lisanna was about Lucy's size, he'd tried it on her to make sure the size would be at least close. It fit on Lisanna's forefinger just fine, so Natsu felt pretty confident that it would fit on Lucy's finger, too.

Now, as he neared his target, he took out the ring to take another look at it. It had a light blue sapphire set in the middle of a gold band. Around the outside of the band, smaller ribbons of gold were intertwined in a vine-like pattern, with small white stones embedded along them. The effect was enchanting. It had reminded him of Lucy the second he saw it: strong, and yet undeniably feminine at the same time. The ring had cost him almost all the money he'd had, but he knew that it would be more than worth it to see Lucy's face.

But he knew that he'd have to do more than just shove a ring at her. He'd have to tell her...tell her what, exactly? What did you say to a girl when you gave her an expensive ring? "Oh, this? I just saw it and decided to buy it for you, not really for any reason." Natsu shook his head. No, that was stupid. It sounded better than confessing his love to her dramatically like the men in her books did, though. He'd read more of them than he cared to admit during the times he had waited for her to come back to her apartment. He also knew that he could never act like those guys. It just wasn't him. Knowing that she was expecting that kind of romance had held him back quite a bit from letting his feelings for her show. If Lucy wanted a fairy tale romance, then that's what she deserved, and he was very aware that he couldn't give that to her. She deserved to be treated like the beautiful princess that she was. Dragons didn't marry princesses, they kidnapped them and terrorized them until the handsome prince came. Natsu sighed. Well, he had to say something. It had to be something close to the truth, too, if he wanted to keep her away from that...creep.

Still trying to puzzle it out, Natsu rounded the final corner to Lucy's apartment, and instantly knew that she was already gone. Her scent held that faint, expectant quality that it had when she wasn't home. Besides that, all the lights were out, a less obvious but sure sign of the apartment's vacancy. He frowned. This hadn't been in his plans. His mind reeled as he tried to think of his next move. Had she mentioned where she'd been going? He was pretty sure she had, but he'd been too angry to really listen carefully .Wait...was it the book store? Natsu couldn't remember for sure, but it was at least a place to start. And anyway, he would probably be able to follow her scent most of the way there, at least until it got too mixed up with other people.

This plan served him well, and it wasn't too long before he knew that he had remembered correctly, and that they were meeting back at the book store. The shop owner was getting ready to close up, but informed Natsu that his lady friend had been in earlier and left with a green-haired gentleman, and they had gone next door to get dinner. Natsu thanked the man hurriedly, and dashed over to the restaurant. He immediately saw Lucy and that moss-haired jerk sitting outside on the patio, so he found a seat inside that would allow him to keep an eye on her while hopefully avoiding her detection.

Somewhere between their entrees and desserts, Natsu realized that what he had meant to be a preventative measure had very quickly turned into stalking. He also wasn't sure whether or not he cared. He was past caring whether or not Lucy wanted to be with him at the moment. All he knew was that he was certain that ass wasn't to be trusted with her, and he would do anything to keep her safe. The only thing keeping him from knocking the guy into next year was his desire to protect Lucy's feelings. He was very sure that she would be mortified if a fistfight broke out over her in the middle of a restaurant. That had been pretty much the only thing keeping him from punching Renard in the book store, too. With this in mind, Natsu forced himself to be content with sitting and watching her.

And watch her he did. His eyes traced every move of her graceful hands, so strong and yet so gentle. He outlined her figure too, noticing that she had changed into a tight-cut red dress that definitely showed off her curves to her advantage. Not that she needed a sexy dress to do that. Hell, she could wear a burlap sack and still have a sexy figure, he was certain. He took in every smile she gave to the other man, every laugh she gave at something that he said. Each one was like a dart directly to his heart. He forced himself to sit through it, though. If this guy turned out to be the way Natsu thought, she'd need him around, and it wouldn't do to lose sight of her before that happened. So he forced himself to sit through the entire torturous meal, for the sake of protecting his love.

After what seemed a thousand years, Lucy and her date finished their meal, and got up to leave. Natsu bolted to his feet, throwing money down on the table next to his own half-eaten food. He darted outside in time to see them turning around a corner of the street. He hurried after them, anxious not to lose sight of Lucy, but taking care not to be seen either. In this manner, he followed them on their leisurely walk around the city. By the time they got back to Lucy's front door, Natsu was a nervous wreck. He couldn't wait for them to part so he could make sure Lucy was ok.

To his horror, Renard started to follow Lucy up the stairs to her apartment. She turned around, placing her hand on his chest. He stopped walking, but then he reached out, pulled Lucy forcefully into his arms...and kissed her.

Natsu felt like his stomach had been ripped clear out of his body. He couldn't move, couldn't do anything but watch as another man kissed his Lucy.

Lucy had quite a different reaction. Her eyes widened, and she placed both hands on Renard's chest, trying to push him off. He held tightly on to her, however, and moved his lips to her neck as he slid his hands lower on her back. Lucy squeezed her eyes shut and let out a strangled noise, half cry and half sob, as she continued to push at Renard's chest.

That noise jerked Natsu out of his trance. With a roar of rage, he sprang from his place in the shadows and launched himself at the man who was assaulting Lucy. Renard only had time to look up with surprise painted plainly on his face before Natsu had hauled him bodily off of his partner.

"Natsu!" he heard Lucy cry from behind him. He had all his rage focused on the man dragging at the end of his arm, however. He snarled, "What the FUCK do you think you were just doing?"

Renard looked blankly back at the enraged dragon slayer. "What do you mean? I was just giving my date a kiss." Natsu didn't miss the emphasis placed on the words, "my date."

He raised his lip into a sneer. "Yeah? Is that why she was trying to push you off of her? Because it was just an innocent kiss goodnight? I'm not stupid, pal. You were planning to take advantage of her."

That finally seemed to make Renard angry. "And so what if I was planning to have sex with her? We were on a date, what's the problem? Are you telling me you don't have any expectations when you go on a date?"

Natsu could feel the anger sizzle through his veins like a physical entity. "I would NEVER think that a girl owed me something just because I took her out on a date!" He couldn't contain himself any longer, and his flaming fist went flying into the other man's face almost of its own accord, knocking him out of Natsu's grip. He allowed his momentum to carry himself forward with the intention of following this punch up with several others, but he was stopped by Lucy hanging her weight on his arm. He looked back at her, startled. "Luce?"

Her face was streaked with tears, and more were still pouring out. "Natsu, just let him go. He's not worth it."

Natsu gave her a long, hard look, which she met with her own tear-filled one. After a moment, he sighed. "All right, Luce. You can let go of me now." She let go of his arm, and he walked forward to pick the other man up off the ground where he had fallen. He yanked Renard's already swelling face up close to his own, and snarled, "You'd better get out of here now before Lucy changes her mind. And I don't want to EVER see you anywhere near her again. Got it, jackass?" Not waiting for an answer, Natsu flung the other man away from him like a dirty rag and turned around, putting his arm around Lucy and guiding her into her apartment. He made sure to check that the door was locked behind them before leading her over to her bed so she could sink down on it. He didn't even hesitate to sit down beside her, not willing to give up his grip on her shoulders.

She kept her face buried in his shoulder for several minutes, sobbing quietly. Natsu contented himself with stroking her silky hair, murmuring reassuring noises into her ear. Finally, when her shaking had lessened a little, she turned her face up at him and whispered, "Thank you, Natsu. I knew you would come."

His heart leapt into his mouth as he stared back at her, feeling the weight of her ultimate trust in him like a warm blanket descending over his shoulders. He gave her a soft smile. "Of course I did, Luce. I'm always there when you need me." He cupped her face in both of his hands, wiping her tears away with his thumbs.

She smiled shakily at him, then let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. This seemed to have opened another dam, and her tears started flowing freely again.

Natsu felt a slight sense of panic. "Luce, what is it now? Can I do anything?"

He didn't miss the little catch that her breath did at his words. He was suddenly aware that their faces were very close together.

"W...well," she stuttered, "I just...oh, Natsu, I feel so dirty! That was...that was..." at this point the sobbing started to return full-force. "M-my first k-kiss..." she trailed off into more sobs. Natsu's pulse quickened a little as he made a sudden decision, and gently leaned in to close the distance between their lips.

He planted a soft, chaste kiss on Lucy, then drew away to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were wide, staring straight back at him in shock, still trickling a little bit from her tears. Natsu searched her face carefully, and finding no trace of resistance, he tenderly whispered, "Well, we'll just have to cover that up, won't we?" and leaned in to kiss her again.

This time, Lucy reached out and dug her hands deep into his pink locks, holding his head to hers in a death grip. As if I'd stop kissing her now, Natsu thought vaguely with amusement. This thought and all others quickly disappeared from his head, however, as he continued to deepen the kiss.

Eventually, Lucy broke the kiss gently, and they both drew back a bit, gasping for breath. Natsu didn't stay away from her lips for very long, however, claiming them again quickly with his own, this time running his tongue along the seam of her mouth until she granted him access to her mouth. He wasted no time in exploring this new part of Lucy, running his tongue along her cheeks, across the roof of her mouth, and then down to tangle with her tongue. As he kissed her, he felt his control start to slip away from him. He desperately tried to gain it back, however, cutting their kiss off to look at Lucy again.

She looked more beautiful than he could ever remember, her eyes shining and her lips full and plump from their kisses. His eyes trailed down to the graceful curve of her neck. He murmured, "Here too, right?" before lowering his mouth down to place kisses along her jawline, gently pressing her body down onto the bed as he trailed his kisses down to her neck. He found her pulse point, and dragged his tongue leisurely across it, drawing a sharp gasp out of his partner as he began to suckle.

The noise snapped him back to himself. What the HELL was he doing? He was practically assaulting Lucy, too! And only minutes after she had been attacked by some creep that he'd had to rescue her from! He drew back from her abruptly, feeling the loss of her warmth like a slap. He didn't dare to look down at her, instead turning around and murmuring, "Lucy, I'm so sorry. I'll leave you alone now. Good night." And, before he could lose control of himself again, he quickly climbed out her window and leapt off of it into the darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

Lucy stared at the vacant window, her whole being reeling from the events that had just taken place. Or had it really happened? She had daydreamed about Natsu kissing her so many times that it could have just been another dream.

But the Natsu in her daydreams wasn't nearly so sensual as this one had been. Her dream Natsu was always a perfect gentleman, virtuous in his love for her. She pressed her shaking fingers gently to her lips. She should have known better than to construct dream Natsu like that. He was not the kind of man who would sing her praises and ride around on a white horse. He was the kind of man who would hold her tightly, as if she were the most precious thing in the world, as if she were in danger of flying away from him at any second. He was the kind of man who gave kisses as passionate and fiery as his magic, as his very soul. She gave a little smile. Lucy was pretty sure she liked the real Natsu's kisses much better. She had never felt so womanly and wanted in her life.

She couldn't have imagined that, right?

No. It had to be real. Natsu did notice her. And not only that...he wanted her. At least in some little way.

Lucy was also certain that he had been following her on her date. She hadn't seen him until he had made his presence known so violently, but she had felt him the minute that he found her. She didn't really have a good explanation for it, but she always seemed to know when he was around. At first it had confused her. Natsu had Lisanna, why was he following Lucy around on her date? Regardless of his reasons, knowing that he was close by had eased up a lot of the initial apprehension she had felt about going on a date with Renard. Not that Renard had done anything wrong...at least at first. He had been a perfect gentleman, considerate of her and her opinions, listening avidly to her interests. But Lucy's heart ached from the knowledge of the closeness of her dragon slayer, and she hadn't really been able to pay attention to what her date was saying. She supposed that had made it easier for Renard to make a move on her, since she hadn't been paying any attention to him at all. She'd also been so flustered when leaving her apartment, focused on not crying, that she'd completely forgotten to bring her keys.

The memory of Renard's lips caused her to shudder involuntarily. Lucy didn't really want to think about what might have happened to her if Natsu hadn't been around. She just remembered uttering a wordless cry for help, half hoping and half knowing that her partner would come for her.

And then...after that...she felt her face flush at the mere memory. Those kisses that he had given her...they had been a thousand times better than what she had imagined a kiss could be. She was certain that her whole body had turned to fire when his lips descended on her neck. But then he had suddenly leapt off of her like she really was on fire, and jumped out of her window before she could say anything. She couldn't understand it. Wasn't he interested in her? Didn't he realize that from the way she had kissed him back that she definitely wanted–no, needed–him? Sighing and still ruminating on this issue, Lucy got up and started to get ready for bed.

Not that she slept much. She tossed and turned for most of the night, and finally gave up a couple hours after the sun came up. She got dressed, and after some internal debate, hurried to the guild as fast as she could. But when she got there, she was too afraid to actually open the door. What if Natsu didn't really want her? What if he'd just gotten carried away? What if he really was with Lisanna? It had certainly looked that way in the jewelry store. Lucy shook her head and slapped both her cheeks lightly. No, I can't let myself get all freaked out now. One way or another, I need to find out what is going on with the two of us, and the easiest way to do that is to ask him directly. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she pushed the door of the guild open...

...to see that Natsu was nowhere to be found. Ok. It's ok, Lucy, it's still early. He's probably just not in yet. I know that he's not much of a morning person. I should just get something to drink and wait here for him. She gave herself a small, encouraging nod, and marched over to the bar before she could change her mind.

Mira saw Lucy coming, and her eyes lit up immediately. "Oh, Lucy, there you are! I've been waiting for you to get in!"

Lucy was puzzled. "You were? Why?"

Mira gave her a radiant smile. "Because, someone left something here for you." She reached down under the counter and pulled out a small wrapped box.

Lucy looked at it in bewilderment. What in the world was it? And who had left it for her?

Mira tapped the counter with one finger. "Well? Aren't you going to open it?" she demanded good-naturedly.

Lucy snapped her head up. "Oh! Right, I should do that."

On top of the box was a small envelope. Lucy opened that first. As she read the short note inside, she felt her pulse steadily increase until it hammered away at a breakneck speed.

Lucy,

I'm so sorry about what happened last night. I got you this yesterday. I didn't have a chance to give it to you. I hope that you like it.

Natsu

Lucy read and reread the words, scanning for hidden meaning. "What happened last night." What did he mean by that? Did he mean that he was sorry that Renard had turned out to be a jackass? Or was he sorry that he had kissed her? Was he starting to regret it? Maybe this meant that he didn't really want to be with her, that he had just gotten carried away...

Her thoughts were interrupted by Mira's impatient voice. "Lucy! Come on, open the box!"

Lucy nodded, and reached to open the present, feeling like she was moving through molasses. The paper came off easily, and underneath she saw a small hinged box. She gently pried open the lid, and gaped in shock at the ring that greeted her.

It was beautiful.

The exquisitely pale blue of the stone was the exact shade of one of her favorite colors. The small entwining bands of gold that wrapped around the main band looked like spiral arms of a galaxy to her, and reminded her of the distant Celestial Spirit Kingdom with their beauty. The small white stones were the perfect accent, looking like a dusting of far-away stars in that same galaxy. She reached out a trembling finger to touch it.

Mira was beaming at her. "Well, Lucy, aren't you going to put it on?"

Lucy's gaze stayed fixed on the elegant ring. "I...I don't know," she replied honestly. It suddenly felt very wrong for her to accept such a beautiful present without Natsu being there so she could thank him. She turned the matter over in her head for a few long seconds. She finally came to a conclusion. She reached out, snapped the lid shut, and handed the box to Mira, asking, "Would you hold on to this for me for a little bit?"

She was too focused on her plans to notice Mira's shocked face. "Uh...sure, Lucy, I can do that."

Lucy was already trotting away out the door. She raised a hand to wave back at the other girl, and called out, "Thanks!"

She hurriedly found a semi-private clearing where she could summon her lion spirit in some peace.

Loke smiled at Lucy as he was called forth. "Hi, Lucy! What can I do for you this beautiful morning?"

Lucy couldn't contain her glee any longer. She beamed at her celestial friend. "Loke, I need your help."


	8. Chapter 8

Lucy wasn't the only one who hadn't been able to sleep much. In fact, Natsu wasn't sure if he had slept at all last night. He'd walked around aimlessly, cursing himself in every way that he could imagine.

Idiot. How could I be so stupid? What the HELL is wrong with me? Treating Lucy like that just minutes after some creep had tried to rape her? I'll be lucky if she ever wants to even look at me again! That last thought struck his heart cold with fear. He didn't even want to think about what he would do if his celestial mage refused to have anything else to do with him. But the inner voice wouldn't let up its endless tirade at his stupidity. She was never interested in me in the first place. Her going out on a date with that leech is proof of that. I was right here, where I've always been, and she chose some other guy. I knew it. She doesn't want me. She wants what she deserves; a prince. At that, another inner voice chimed in, But if that's true, why did she kiss me back like that? Maybe...maybe she does feel something for me after all. This thought was almost worse than his previous ones had been. It wouldn't do any good to pump himself up with false hope. And yet, there was always that small chance that maybe she did want him after all.

Suddenly, it hit him. He had the perfect way of finding out how she felt. He still had the ring in his pocket from earlier that day. He would give it to her and see what her reaction was.

Natsu shook his head a bit. No, he couldn't go back to her apartment. She needed to be alone for the night, so she could feel secure in her own safe space after what had happened to her. That only left one option. He would leave it in the guild for her. Having decided this, he turned his path to this new destination.

Mira, of course, was delighted to pass on his present for him, and gauge Lucy's reaction to it. She could never resist playing matchmaker for her guildmates. She did, however, point out that he should leave a note along with the box. A note which he agonized over for the next half hour. He tore up several attempts, before deciding that simple was the best method. He stuck the note in the envelope that Mira offered and slapped it on top of the ring box, turning and marching out of the guild hall before he could change his mind.

After that, he had gone home to find Happy already fast asleep, and had tried to do the same. He was pretty sure that he had slept for a few hours, but it didn't feel that way to him now, as he was making his way to the guild. Natsu had been too full of nervous energy to try to sleep any more, and had decided to see if Lucy had opened her present yet, sneaking out of the house quietly so as not to wake the still-sleeping Exceed.

He practically ran to the guild, kicking down the door with his usual vigor and dashing over to Mira at the bar. "Well?" he demanded. "Has she been here?

Mira gave him a sober look. "Yeah, she has. But she left the ring here."

Natsu felt like he had been slapped. "She what? Did she even open it?"

Mira nodded. "She opened it, stared at it like she'd seen a ghost, and then ran out of here before I could ask her any questions."

Natsu stared at her. "What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that?"

The other wizard shrugged her slim shoulders. "Beats me. But you'll never find out if you don't ask her."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll just go find her and we can talk about this." He grabbed the ring box, turned around in a daze, and walked out the door.

Once outside, he caught her scent in the air fairly quickly. The sweet scent of vanilla, something floral, and underneath that, the heady scent that was all Lucy's own natural smell. He picked up another scent that had joined hers close to the guild, and couldn't help but let out a low growl. What the hell was Lucy doing with that clingy Loke? Did she really want so little to do with him that she'd turn to that freak? Well, he supposed there was only one real way to find out, like Mira had said. He had to find her and ask her.

But this certainly didn't give him much hope.

He followed their scent into town, down the meandering streets, and finally terminating at a place that he knew.

The jewelry shop where he had bought Lucy her ring. And through the window, he could see Lucy with Loke. Her face was radiant with happiness. She turned to Loke and laughed as she accepted a wrapped package from the clerk and put in into her pocket. As soon as she had stowed it away, she grabbed one of Loke's hands with both of hers, saying something to him with a radiant smile on her face.

Natsu saw red.

He stormed into the jewelry shop, and Lucy's face turned to surprise when she saw him. And was that...apprehension?

"N-Natsu!" she said haltingly. "We were just–"

Natsu grabbed her hand roughly away from Loke. "Come on, let's go," he snarled.

Lucy looked back at Loke, bewildered. The celestial spirit shrugged at her, and returned back through his door to the spirit world.

Natsu towed Lucy out of the store and stormed off, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to get him to slow down. He didn't think he could take any more of this. He obviously couldn't handle seeing Lucy with other guys, and she quite clearly wanted nothing to do with him romantically. His mind raged tumultuously as he blindly pulled his partner out of town. Where was he even taking her? He hadn't really thought when he'd grabbed on to her in the store, he'd just wanted to get her as far away from the other man as possible. Natsu couldn't help but feel that it had been his fault that Lucy had to go through Renard's pawing last night. He'd been there, watching, and had done nothing to stop it until after Renard had already put his dirty hands on her. He'd be damned if he left her alone with another man again for a while, even if she didn't have any interest in him. He'd still protect her.

Stop it, Natsu, he scolded himself. Right now I need to figure out where we're going. I sure as hell don't want to talk about this whole thing. It's pretty clear now that she chooses any guy except me. So what now? I can't just pull her around Fiore for the rest of eternity. Suddenly, he remembered the job request he'd picked yesterday. That's right, he thought to himself, that wasn't too far out of town. We'll go take care of that, and then I can watch over her, but still have something to do and talk about other than how much I suck. Having come to this decision, he let go of Lucy's hand. He kept walking in front of her at the same breakneck pace, though, leaving her to trot to his side to catch up. Out of the corner of his eye, Natsu saw her open her mouth to say something to him, so he cut her off curtly before she could utter a single hurtful word of what he was certain was coming. "We're going on that job now, Lucy."

"Oh..ok," she responded, a clear question in her voice.

Despite that, Natsu ignored her, and walked along in silence until they reached the address on the job request. He knocked curtly on the door.


	9. Chapter 9

The door was opened by a thin, worn-looking man. He glanced over both of them before asking, "Yes? Can I help you?"

Natsu just glowered silently, so Lucy hurried to answer, "Ah, yes, sir, we're wizards from Fairy Tail. We're here to take your job request."

The man's face lit up. "Oh, you're here about the job! Good, I was starting to worry that nobody would answer! Please, come in!" He turned around and scurried off into the house. Natsu followed behind him without a word, leaving a perplexed Lucy to bring up the rear.

She wasn't sure what had caused the sudden anger in her partner. She had gone to the jewelry store after enlisting Loke's help. She had figured that, if Natsu was going to give her something so beautiful, so perfect for her, she should have a present ready to give him in return. She was ecstatic the whole way there. Surely such a stunning ring meant that he at least had some feelings for her...right? Lucy hadn't let herself think about it too much, choosing to cling on to the ray of hope that had been cast in her path. And since she was choosing jewelry for her partner, who could be better at picking out men's jewelry than Loke? She'd gushed joyfully to him the entire way to the store, unable to contain her rising sense of hope. They'd spent much longer in the store than Lucy had anticipated, however. She had gone painstakingly through every case, determined to pick out something for Natsu that would be as meaningful as the ring he had bought for her. Loke had definitely been a huge help, vetoing a few things that were too gaudy for her dragon slayer. Finally, as they had rounded the store to look in the last row of display cases, Lucy had struck upon the perfect piece: a gold ring with a wide band, cut with a defined edge, rather than the curved roundness of a typical women's ring. Etched around the band was a sloping pattern that reminded Lucy of flames. Cementing this impression, there were several flaming reddish black stones set into grooves carved out of the pattern. These stones shimmered darkly in their depths when the ring was turned, creating the illusion of live fire. She had been certain then. This had to be the ring for Natsu. It was masculine and bold, and not so flashy that Natsu wouldn't wear it. Just as she had been paying for it and thanking Loke for his help, however, the object of her affections had burst into the shop with a stormy expression, grabbed her, and towed her off.

Now, she followed meekly behind him as she wracked her brain to try to come up with some explanation for his behavior. Her musings were cut short, however, when the client led them into his living room, and indicated for them to take a seat. Natsu sat down huffily in the room's sole arm chair, leaving Lucy by herself on the couch. The man, not noticing the tension between them, sat on a love seat opposite Lucy and smiled gratefully at them. "Thank you so much for coming! My name is Maven Tyndall."

Lucy indicated herself and then the dragon slayer. "I'm Lucy Heartfilia, and this is my partner Natsu Dragneel."

Maven nodded at them, and continued, "Now, I suppose you're wanting some details about this job."

Lucy glanced at Natsu out of the corner of her eye, only to see that he had his arms folded huffily over his chest, still wearing that same heated look. Lucy realized that she was on her own for conversation, and quickly turned to the man, saying, "Yes, that would be great."

He replied obligingly, "Well, like the request said, I need help retrieving a rare book from a group of monsters. You see, I'm a researcher, and I often travel around to acquire rare books for my research. I was on my way back from one of these trips, walking through the mountainous region northwest of Magnolia, when I was ambushed by a small group of monsters. They seized the pack that I was carrying and dashed off. Now, I'm not too concerned with the supplies that I had with me, but there was a very rare book in my pack, one that I've been searching for several years to find. It's dark blue, and relatively thin. You should be able to identify it fairly easily. I can't imagine the beasts have stolen too many books. And, of course, I will be more than happy to reward you handsomely for your troubles. In addition to the cash reward, I have some rare books I have finished researching, and I'd be willing to part with one of them if you're interested."

Lucy nodded enthusiastically, her eyes alight. "Oh, yes, sir! That sounds wonderful! Now, would you be able to tell us about where you were ambushed, or any other details about the creatures that stole from you?"

Maven shook his head, a slight frown on his features. "I didn't get a very close look at them, but I'm fairly certain they were some type of Vulcans. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them?"

Lucy nodded grimly. "Yeah, we've encountered them before."

"Good, then you'll understand how to deal with them. As for location, I can't be certain exactly, but I would guess that it was about half a day's walk from here. I was coming back from the Shirotsume area, so you should be able to walk along that path and find their base. I'm sorry that I can't be more help in pinpointing a location. I know that this is a difficult request, which is why I'm offering such a substantial reward."

Lucy rushed to say, "Oh, it's no problem, Mr. Tyndall. We are Fairy Tail wizards, after all. This part is our job, not yours. Just leave it to us!"

The man clasped his hands together fervently. "Thank you so much, young wizards! I'll be looking forward to your return in a few days, then!"

At this, Natsu rose abruptly out of his seat and strode towards the doorway. Lucy hastily got up as well, bowed slightly to Maven, and said, "Thank you, sir," before hurrying to follow her partner out of the house.

She scurried out of the house, straining to keep up with her irate partner. "Hey, Natsu, wait up!" she huffed. "We need to make a plan. Are we planning to walk? I don't think that there's any other good way to get out to those cliffs. Should we try to get a carriage? And shouldn't we go back to get Happy?"

Natsu continued to stride along in front of her, not even turning around to acknowledge her words. Lucy puffed her cheeks up in frustration, and trotted along behind him in silence.

But that silence didn't mean that Lucy's mind stopped working. She was, by now, thoroughly confused at his actions over the course of the past two days. She had gone from elation to crushing sadness, and couldn't decide where her feelings sat at now. She retraced the events of that morning, trying to figure out what had happened to make her dragon slayer friend so upset. After finding the ring Natsu had left for her at the guild, she had enlisted Loke's help in choosing something to give as a gift in return. She had been elated to find what she considered the perfect piece for Natsu, but had been thoroughly flabbergasted when he had found her in the jewelry store and pulled her out angrily. And now, here they were, walking along in the same stony silence. Lucy shook her head. She just couldn't understand why he would basically abduct her to go on a job, and then refuse to talk to her about any of it.

A sudden thought hit her with cold realization. Maybe...maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe he had decided that giving her the ring had been a huge mistake, and he was mad at himself for even thinking of it. Her heart sank a little as she continued to turn this possibility over in her head. That would make sense, she concluded. After all, she had seen how Natsu acted with Lisanna when they had been in the store yesterday afternoon. She didn't think that she could have mistaken that unabashed joy and hopefulness that she had seen on Natsu's face as he had given the silver-haired mage a crushing hug. Yes. That had to be it. Natsu really was with Lisanna. And he had, on some whim, decided to give Lucy a present too, maybe to apologize for not telling her about his relationship. She kicked herself mentally. She had thought that she had done a good job of keeping her feelings for her partner from showing, but it seemed like he had noticed. He probably had been trying to let her down gently, by giving her a present to placate her. Lucy felt her hands start to shake, and she clenched them into fists in an attempt to keep back the sorrow and anger at herself. How could she possibly have thought that Natsu might have feelings for her? The thought was almost laughable. What could he possibly see in her? Hadn't he said it, on the first mission they had officially gone on? A mission, she couldn't help but notice, that was starting to seem similar to the one they were on right now. Back then, he had called her useless. There was no way he could love someone that he always needed to rescue, someone who she felt didn't even begin to reach his level of magic.

Lucy felt tears pricking at her eyes, and scrunched them shut tightly in an effort to keep the drops from falling. It wouldn't do for Natsu to see her crying now. He clearly was already aggravated enough by her. She certainly didn't need to add her messy emotions on top of it all. But she also knew that she would never be able to sit back and smile at Natsu's wedding to another woman, would never be able to watch him happily build a life with someone else. As she silently followed after her seething partner, she decided that, for the sake of her emotional well-being, this would have to be the last mission that they went on. Lucy knew that she wouldn't be able to sincerely congratulate him on his happiness with Lisanna, but the last thing she wanted to do was be a burden to him in any way. She would have to give up being his partner.

This decided, she trailed meekly behind the irate dragon slayer, trying her best to get her emotions in check.

They walked along this way for several hours, neither of them inclined to break the silence that had settled uneasily over them. Finally, they reached the rugged area that led up to the treacherous cliff pathways, and began to climb. At this, Natsu finally spoke. Without looking at Lucy, he curtly ordered, "Be careful up here, Lucy. The path goes pretty close to the edge. From here on out, we could run into the Vulcans at any time, so be on your guard." Lucy didn't respond, and the silence returned as they walked on, steadily climbing up uneventfully for about half an hour.

Suddenly, the tense silence erupted into a chorus of shrieks and grunts as the monkey-like Vulcans appeared out of nowhere. Lucy and Natsu both started back, but immediately recovered and jumped into action. Lucy moved first, reaching for her keys to call on her spirits. As she did, she took a half step back to get better traction.

This proved to be her undoing. Instead of gaining better purchase, her foot slipped completely off the path. Before she had time to react, she felt her body pitch sideways, falling down off the cliff. She only had time for a drawn-out scream as she was plunged over the edge.


	10. Chapter 10

Natsu stared after her in horror. He felt like he was plummeting down over the cliff along with Lucy.

No. No, this couldn't be happening. There was no way that she could–

He couldn't even finish the thought. He had to go find her. It was as simple as that.

Wordlessly, he roared his rage and fear, emitting a swirling column of flame along with it. The fire engulfed several of the Vulcans that were jumping down to attack from higher cliffs, incinerating them instantly. He whirled around and drove his fist into a Vulcan that was coming up behind him, knocking it and another Vulcan behind it off the same cliff that Lucy had fallen from. Without stopping, he whipped around to face the main body of attackers again. He fought without thought for the next several minutes, until all of his enemies were eliminated. Natsu, heaving, gave one last look around the path, making sure that he really had gotten rid of all of them, before dashing over to the edge.

He skidded to a stop and leaned out as far as he dared, searching for any sign of where Lucy had fallen. With his heart sinking, he noted the path of broken tree limbs that spoke of her fall down the side of the mountain. He couldn't see all the way to the bottom, however. All that he could make out was a vague fog where he assumed the ground was. He quickly scanned the area, searching frantically for a way down, and located a path that started about 10 meters below where he was now. He decided that he didn't have time to follow his own path backwards, hoping that the two would meet up. He absolutely had to get down there as quickly as possible. Lucy was waiting for him, and she might be hurt, or–no, she had to be ok. He had to go find her.

Natsu swung his legs out over the ledge, dropping his body down so he was gripping the edge with one hand. Dangling there, he looked below him to determine the best landing position before allowing his body to drop to the lower path. Using this method he haphazardly worked his way closer to the ground as quickly as he could, with hardly any concern for his own safety.

Just wait, Luce. I'm coming for you.


	11. Chapter 11

Lucy groaned as she started to regain consciousness, the world coming back to her in fog and black haze. Her head ached strongly, and she guessed that she must have bumped it on the way down. Not that she was complaining. Hell, she was lucky that she had even survived a fall like that. She tried to reach up to assess the physical damage to her head, but was stopped by a binding around her middle. The shock of this caused her eyes to snap fully open and the world to return sharply into focus.

She was in the middle of a small cave. She looked down and saw that she was seated on the ground, bound from her elbows to her knees with what looked like ropes or thick vines. It was difficult to fully tell in the dim light that came in through the narrow opening of the cave. She also recognized the foul taste in her mouth as a makeshift gag made from a dirty rag. Thankfully, she didn't see any traces of whoever had bound her. She assumed that it had to be one of the Vulcans. Which meant...she felt the color drain from her face. Shit. She had to get out of here, and fast. If she didn't, she would either be taken bodily over by one of the Vulcans, or...she gulped, and remembered the intense interest that Vulcan Macao had taken in her body. She had to figure out some way to escape.

Unfortunately, her keys were nowhere to be found. That wasn't surprising. She had been holding them in her hand when she had fallen, and they had gone flying wildly as she had scrambled on the way down to grab something that might stop her fall. Lucy felt a worried stab at the knowledge that her keys were lying around somewhere that they could get picked up by anyone. Yes, she definitely had to get out.

But how?

Just then, she heard the sound of movement at the front of the cave, and looked up in horror to see the leering faces of two Vulcans starting to enter.

Until they abruptly exploded into flames.

Lucy stared, wide-eyed, as her captors disappeared into two small piles of ash right in front of her eyes. When the flames cleared, she saw a profile outlined by the sunlight at the mouth of the cave. A profile that she knew even better than she knew the patterns on her keys. Her battered heart leapt at the sight of him, and she squirmed in her bonds, trying to attract his attention.

But Natsu wasn't looking towards her. He was looking at something on the ground, and as he stooped down to retrieve it, Lucy saw his hand draw the object up to his chest, saw his body start to heave and shake with silent sobs. Horrified, she redoubled her efforts to make some sort of noise, and managed to emit a muffled scream through her gag.

Natsu's head jerked up at the sound, and he squinted into the cave, finally seeming to make out her form. He stared at her for a long moment, finally whispering disbelievingly, "Lucy?"

Lucy nodded violently, tears streaming freely down her own face. Natsu stood up slowly and started to come towards her, moving haltingly. He reached her and slumped down on the ground, extending his hand toward her hesitatingly, as if not convinced that she were real. Lucy leaned her face forward a few inches to meet his hand, resting the full weight of her head onto it.

This seemed to snap Natsu out of his uncertainty. "Lucy!" he exclaimed, and reached out to tear off her bindings. As she was released, her stiff arms collapsed wearily onto the floor of the cave, numb from inactivity. Natsu then reached up to rip off her gag. Their eyes met for a single, breathtaking second, before he seized her with urgency and placed a fervent kiss on her lips.

Lucy kissed him back with the same desperation, feeling warmth spread from her lips to reanimate her cold limbs. She slowly lifted her arms, wanting to reach out and make sure that the Natsu in front of her was real. He was doing the same to her, roaming his hands along her arms, her back, and up to check her head. He drew in a sharp breath as he found the lump that had come from her fall, breaking the kiss to exclaim, "Lucy! You're hurt! Are you ok?"

Lucy looked back at him giddily, hardly able to make sense out of his words. "I'm fine, Natsu. Are you ok?"

Natsu's grip on her tightened. "Idiot! Don't worry about me right now. I'm not the one who fell off a cliff! Luce, I was so scared. I followed you all the way down, and I couldn't find you anywhere. Then I found your keys on the ground out there, and I was so sure..." he trailed off without finishing his thought, choosing instead to pull her in for another crushing kiss.

This time, Lucy had gained enough control of her body to hold on to him, too, and respond with an eagerness that she hoped conveyed her feelings to him. Gone were all thoughts of anyone else and any worries she'd harbored that morning. All that mattered to her was that her dragon slayer was in front of her, kissing her and holding her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. She took advantage of the situation to perform her own check of Natsu, sliding her hands over his torso to look for injuries. Satisfied when she didn't find any, she glided her hands up to rest in his hair, wanting this kiss to last forever.

Finally, Natsu pulled back from her and rested his forehead on hers. He shut his eyes and whispered, "Luce...I don't know what I would have done if I had lost you."

Lucy's heart surged in her chest. She unconsciously traced small circles on the back of his head as she replied, "I'm sorry, Natsu. I'm sorry that you always have to come rescue me. I didn't mean to make you worry."

At this, Natsu grasped her face firmly in his hands and tilted her head up to meet his serious gaze. "Don't ever apologize for that," he reprimanded fiercely. "I'll always, always come for you, and be happy to do it. I want to be the one you rely on. I want to be the one to take care of you. Of course I'm going to worry about you, Luce. I love you."

Lucy's eyes widened in shock as she tried to process what her dragon slayer had just said to her. Natsu, however, didn't wait for a reaction from her, and continued without any hesitation in his voice, "I can't keep doing this, Lucy. I don't care if you don't want anything to do with me, I have to let you know how I feel. I know that you want a fairy tale romance, and you deserve it. You deserve to have anything you want in life, Luce. I know that I'm not the kind of guy that you want. But I do know that I love you more than any other guy could. Please, I just want to try. I know that I can make you happy if you let me." He broke off here and searched her eyes carefully in the dim light.

Lucy could hardly breathe. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. Did Natsu...did Natsu really just say that he loved her? She had to find out, to dispel any doubts she had. She drew in a shaky breath and asked nervously, "But...but Natsu, I thought that you had Lisanna?"

He drew back a little stared at her blankly. "Lucy, what are you talking about?"

She swallowed nervously. "I saw you two in the jewelry store. I saw you...putting a ring on her. You looked...you looked so happy, I just knew that you had to be picking out an engagement ring for her." Natsu stared at her incredulously as she barreled on, "I know that I'm not very reliable, Natsu, but you didn't have to hide the truth from me just to spare my feelings. I don't want to come in between a relationship, especially if...if it's something that makes you happy." She trailed off here with a small sniffle, feeling tears starting to form.

Natsu broke out of his shock to pull her into a crushing hug. "Geez, Lucy! You have such a weird imagination! I was never with Lisanna. She's like my little sister! I took her along with me to pick out a present for you, because I knew that she wouldn't make fun of me. And I just used her as a model for the ring, to make sure the size would be ok. Luce, it's only ever been you that I've cared for." As he said this, he buried his face into her shoulder, tightening his hold on her even more, if that was possible. He continued, his voice slightly muffled by her body. "All I've ever wanted is you, and for you to be happy, even if it wasn't with me."

Lucy slowly returned his hug, sinking her face into the slope of his neck. She inhaled lightly, catching the smell of wood fire that was fully Natsu. From her spot of security, she whispered, "Oh, Natsu. I never wanted anyone else. I just...I just love you." This last confession was uttered quietly, so quietly that she wasn't even sure herself if she had really said it.

But Natsu had heard. She felt his body freeze up at her words. He loosed his grip and pulled back, and she instantly resented this loss as he gave her a scrutinizing look. "You–you do?" he asked, as if he hardly trusted his ears. She gave him a shaky smile through the tears that were starting to fall. "Yes!" she exclaimed happily. She threw her arms around his neck and, with a small tremulous laugh, pulled his head down for a kiss.

Natsu returned the kiss, pressing his mouth hungrily into hers. She felt his tongue, and instantly opened her mouth to allow him in. They tangled together in her mouth, until she timidly disengaged her tongue from his and gingerly pressed it into Natsu's mouth. He welcomed her tongue with his own, gently guiding her in a brief exploration of his mouth. This didn't last very long, however, as Natsu quickly pushed both of their tongues back into her mouth, easing their bodies down to the ground as he did. Once Lucy was resting fully on the floor of the cave, Natsu drew back from their kiss almost reluctantly, and looked down at her with undeniable tenderness. He smoothed his hand gently over her hair, as he said in a hushed tone, "Say it again, Luce."

She beamed up at him. "Only if you say it first," she returned joyfully.

His grin felt like a beacon of sunshine to her heart. "I love you, Lucy Heartfilia."

She matched his smile with a giddy one of her own. "And I love you, Natsu Dragneel," she replied, pulling him down to her for a short, sweet kiss.

As he drew away from her, she gently pushed on his chest to get him up. She intertwined her fingers with him so he would pull her up into a sitting position, too. Once she was facing him, she gave him a smile, and sheepishly said, "Natsu...I have something for you." She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out the ring that she had bought that morning. She handed the box to him and prodded him, "Open it."

He laughed. "Well, I'll need my other hand, then."

Lucy reluctantly gave up her hold on his fingers so he could open the box. She watched him carefully for his reaction, and was rewarded when she saw his eyes widen a little. "Lucy...this is perfect. It looks like it was made just for me." He took the ring out, dropping the box on their laps, and looked at her with a devious smile. "Lucy, can you put it on for me?"

She looked at him, slightly taken aback, and stuttered, "Y-yeah, of course."

He handed her the ring and extended his left hand towards her. She started with his index finger, and finding that the ring stopped at the middle knuckle on both that finger and the middle one, moved next to his ring finger with shaking hands. It slid smoothly on, and she looked up into his eyes to find a loving glee dancing in them. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead and said, "I have something for you too, Lucy. You left it at the guild." He reached into his own pocket and pulled out the delicate ring he'd chosen for her.

She let out a small laugh. "It didn't seem right to accept it without you being with me. I wanted to let you know how much I love it." She looked deep into his eyes, hoping that she was conveying the intensity of her love in her gaze.

Natsu gave her that same impish smile, catching her left hand in his as he took the ring out of its box. He didn't even try other fingers, gliding it onto her ring finger. It fit perfectly, and sat on her hand sparkling like a small star. He smiled contentedly. "I knew it would be right for you." He looked up at her and entwined both of their hands together again as he gave her another long, loving kiss.

Finally, he drew back and stood up, pulling her to her feet beside him. Before she could utter a word, he had scooped her up in his arms in a bridal carry, and started out of the cave.

"N-Natsu!" she stuttered. "I can walk! Put me down, I'm fine!"

His grip on her tightened. "No way in hell. I got you back safely in one piece, and I'm not about to let you go now."

Lucy felt her cheeks flush, and she decided that maybe this was ok with her after all. Settling her arms around his neck and burrowing into his shoulder, she sighed contentedly and allowed herself to be carried to wherever her love wanted to take her.


	12. Chapter 12

Natsu reveled in the satisfying weight of Lucy in his arms. How could Happy think she was too heavy? She was perfect. He clutched her tightly to his chest, feeling like his heart stopped as she laid her head onto him. He automatically responded by tilting his own head sideways to rest on the top of hers for a brief second before straightening up. He still had to get them off this damn mountain. Scanning quickly, he located the start of a path through a small grove of trees, and started off towards it.

Once he had broken through the trees, he relaxed a little bit, being careful to stay aware in case any other Vulcans had survived. He was pretty sure that he had wiped them all out in his angry rampage, though. Thinking about that brought back the fear and despair he had felt just a few short minutes ago, and he pressed a kiss onto the top of Lucy's head. "I was so scared you were gone, Lucy. I thought for sure there was no way you could have survived that fall. And then when I found your keys...I know that you'd never part from your spirits. I felt like I'd had half of me ripped away all of a sudden. I'm so glad you're ok." He kissed her head again, hard this time, feeling his eyes prickle with the released tension and sorrow. When she didn't reply, he felt panic start to rise again. Had she hit her head harder than he'd thought? Natsu drew his head back sharply and barked, "Lucy?" Once he saw her face, though, he relaxed again into a loving smile. She had fallen asleep on his shoulder. He slowed his steps a bit in an effort to smooth them out, and continued on, looking for a place where they could spend the night.

By the time they got off the mountain, dusk had already started to streak the sky with pink and purple tinges, and Natsu lowered his standards for a sleeping place. Any covered area in the woods would do, as long as it was far enough off the path that nobody could see them as they slept. Luckily, he found a small clearing just as the pink began to turn blood red and the purple became deep blue. He gently placed Lucy down and propped her up with her back resting against a tree. He took off his vest and spread it over her shoulders, hoping that this would compensate for his lost body heat enough that she wouldn't wake up. He sighed, wishing that he hadn't been in such a rush to leave Magnolia before they had grabbed some supplies.

He then went off in search of firewood and something to eat. However, this took him a lot longer than it normally would, as he couldn't be out of sight of Lucy for more than a few minutes before becoming frantic and rushing back into the clearing to make sure that she was really ok. Eventually, though, he had gathered sufficient firewood for the night and found a few small animals he could cook for them. He'd even managed to find some soft pine needles that he spread out for a bed, making sure that it was far enough away from the fire pit.

As he was finishing up and checking on the meat, he heard a small noise behind him and whipped around to see Lucy cracking her eyes open slowly. "Natsu...where are we?" she asked groggily. He scurried over and knelt down on the ground in front of her, reaching a hand out to inspect her head again. "Shh, Luce. Take it slowly. I found us a place to sleep tonight, we were a bit too far from home to make it back tonight. How's your head?" He stared worriedly at her as she replied, "It's ok. It's still just kinda sore from the fall..." she trailed off and turned bright red. "And...and then I...I kissed you..."

Natsu laughed. "Yeah, and I kissed you. Isn't it great?" He couldn't contain the joy he felt right then. She loved him. She had said so, she loved him. Not any other guy, but Natsu Dragneel. He grinned, and leaned in to give her a soft, loving kiss. Lucy's eyes widened at first, but then she closed them and gave herself to the kiss. By the time he drew away, she just had the beginnings of a blush tinging her cheeks.

She looked down at herself, saw his vest, and colored more. "Natsu! This is yours!" She looked up as if suddenly noticing that he was shirtless.

"Well, I wanted you to be warm," he replied. Smiling, he stood up, and reached down to lift her into his arms again. Lucy squealed, "Natsu!"

He laughed, and replied, "Nope! I'm carrying you anywhere you want to go tonight! You're not allowed to walk."

She looked up into his face with an exaggerated little pout. "Natsuuu," she whined.

He simply grinned back and replied, "Aw, come on, Luce! Just give this one to me." His voice sobering a bit, he continued, "I need it. I just need to feel you here, safe."

Lucy's face softened, and she smiled tenderly as she brushed her hand through his hair. "Oh, all right, then. Can you carry me to the food? I'm starving!"

Natsu's grin was back. "Yes, ma'am!" he replied, and deposited her gently next to the fire. He handed her some of the meat, and watched anxiously as she ate. After a while, she looked up at him, puzzled, and asked, "Natsu, what's wrong? I've never seen you not eat right away."

He shrugged one shoulder. "I just want to make sure that you can eat all right. Making sure you didn't injure your head too much."

She sighed with fake exasperation. "I'm fine! Stop worrying about me and just eat!"

He glowered as he started to bite into his own meal, mumbling, "Easy for you to say."

Her clear laugh echoed around their campsite like a bell. "I never thought I'd hear you say it wasn't easy for you to eat!"

Natsu snapped his gaze up to hers as he swallowed his mouthful of food, and glowered. "Lucy, I don't really think this is funny! Do you have any idea what it was like for me to see you go over that cliff? I watched as the woman I love more than anything else in this world was ripped away from me."

He heard Lucy suck in her breath, and her eyes widened. "You...you love me that much?" she asked uncertainly.

He allowed himself a brief half-smile. "Yeah, of course I do, you weirdo." He dropped his head so he wouldn't have to meet Lucy's eyes and continued in a lower tone, "But I couldn't do anything when you fell. I just watched and didn't do anything. I...I almost lost you." He clenched his hands into fists, furious all over again at his own helplessness to protect what he loved.

Delicate hands suddenly came into his field of vision, and rested softly on top of the angry fists. Lucy pried gently at his fingers and placed her hands in his as he opened them to her. She traced along the lines of his palms, rested her forehead on top of his head, and whispered, "Natsu, it's ok. What happened wasn't your fault. I just slipped. I should have been more careful." He started to make a noise to interrupt, but she continued. "If anything, it was mostly my fault, but it definitely was NOT your fault. In fact, I would have been in a lot worse situation if you hadn't come to save me." Her voice hitched a little. "You seem to be saving me a lot lately, actually. First that jackass last night, and now rescuing me from the cave today. I don't know what I'd do without you."

At this, Natsu looked up into her eyes. They were glossy with unshed tears, but she met his gaze without flinching and told him firmly, "Natsu, I feel the same way you do. You're the most important person in the world to me, and I don't want you to be upset or blame yourself. What matters here is that we're both ok." She blinked, and a single tear trickled out from the corner of her eye.

Natsu's breath caught in his throat. She was so beautiful. Upset enough to cry, but strong enough to make sure he was fine at the same time. He felt himself move before he knew what was happening to his body. He hooked his hand around the base of her head, pulling her roughly into him for a crushing kiss. His other hand went up and wiped away the lone tear from Lucy's face. Without breaking their kiss, he rose and swooped her up along with him, using his momentum to swing her smoothly over to the makeshift bed he had prepared earlier. He tore away from her and lowered himself gently down until he was resting above her, propped up on his elbows resting on either side of her body. She looked up at him lovingly and pulled his head down again, both of them completely forgetting their abandoned meal.

Lucy's tongue asked for entrance first, and he gladly gave it to her. She inserted it into his mouth, and probed him gently, mimicking how he had kissed her. He bore it as patiently as he could for a while, but finally growled and shoved both of their tongues into Lucy's mouth to coil and dance together.

Natsu finally ended the kiss, and as Lucy laid on the ground panting, he wasted no time in exploring her with more kisses. He traced his tongue idly down the line of her jaw, stopping when he reached her ear lobe. He licked it once, and then used his tongue to scoop it into his mouth, suckling gently. This earned a small gasp from Lucy. Interesting, he thought. I wonder what happens if I lick down lower...he released Lucy's ear and nuzzled her hair away from her neck, allowing free access to her pale skin. He pressed kisses down her neck, starting right at the joint of her jaw, lazily moving downwards, licking out with his tongue before enveloping each spot with an open kiss. He reveled in the small noises she gave as he kissed her neck. Reaching her pulse point, he remembered what had happened the last time he had kissed there. Let's see if she has the same reaction again, he thought wickedly to himself. He languidly licked circles around the pulsating spot with the tip of his tongue, relishing Lucy's long, low groan. Suddenly, he nipped the skin sharply, earning a cry from his celestial mage. The noise made his cock twitch, alerting him to his growing need. Natsu smiled into her neck. He decided that he liked that reaction very much, and repeated his experiment, pleased to get the same results.

At some time during all this, Lucy's hands had worked their way into his hair, but now she disentangled them and began to run her slender fingers down his neck and across his shoulders, gripping tightly as he gave her neck another, gentler nip. He found that her questing hands drew his attention away a bit from what he was doing, so he pulled them both up into a sitting position, hoping that her hands would move to a less distracting place so he could continue exploring her neck.

However, she disappointed him by removing her hands and drawing back from him altogether . She looked down at the ground, beet red, as she gripped the hem of her shirt.

Natsu stared at her. "Lucy! What are you doing?"

If it was possible, she blushed even more, and although she did not meet his gaze, replied firmly, "Well, it doesn't seem fair that you're the only one not wearing a shirt." Before he had time to do anything more than gape at this statement, she pulled her top over her head in one swift motion. As Natsu stared at her luscious breasts spilling over the top of her bra, he was pretty sure that his already-hard dick didn't just twitch, it jumped.

Oh, yeah. He would definitely need to take care of that later.

For now, he focused on her perfect breasts. He reached out and reverently stroked the top of one breast with a single finger. Lucy bit her lower lip in response, which just made him all the more fascinated. What kinds of reactions could he get out of her from her breasts? He traced his finger down the side of her breast, until his hand hovered directly over the center. He pressed his palm into her, and she groaned softly. He squeezed gently, and she sucked in her breath hard. He squeezed again as he ran his thumb over the top of her soft mound, and she gasped audibly this time. He grinned, and leaned in to kiss her as he continued to gently knead her breast. After a few searing kisses, he moved his other hand up and grasped both of them at the same time, a little harder. Lucy let out a soft cry. He continued to massage her with his hands, eliciting small gasps from her until she abruptly reached up and batted his hands away. Before he could react, she reached behind her and unhooked her bra, allowing it to fall off her shoulders to the ground.

Natsu gaped at her chest. He hadn't imagined that her breasts would be so...exquisite. Full and round, they curved gracefully along the sides of her body, pressing together gently in the middle of her chest. The nipples were pert, surrounded by a ring of darkened flesh.

Natsu licked his lips. They looked delicious.

He decided that first, however, he wanted to feel them. He returned his hands to where they had been before, cupping each mound gently. He lifted his hands experimentally, enjoying the weight in his palms. He dug his fingers into her skin, savoring the soft, supple flesh almost as much as he enjoyed the moans his hands elicited from his partner. Eventually his fingers trailed over to her nipples. He pinched one gently, and Lucy let out a sharp, high-pitched moan. He did it harder, earning a loader noise, and felt her nipple stiffen under his grip. He decided to try pinching both at the same time, and she cried out.

He couldn't hold back any longer. He wanted to taste her. Not letting go of his hold on her nipples, he leaned his head down to the swell of her breasts, and dragged his tongue slowly from one nipple, across her chest, ending at the other. Lucy let out a prolonged moan as he did this, and he felt her tremble a little under his touch. He then tightened his grip, and used his hold on her nipples to spread her breasts gently apart. Once he had succeeded in moving them, he buried his face in between the gap of her breasts, turned his head slightly, and bit the side of one soft mound. She let out a sharp yell, and buried her fingers into their place in his hair. Natsu kissed and nipped his way across her naked skin until he had reached her now-firm nipple. He snaked his tongue out and flicked it several times over the stiff peak, loving the sharp moans Lucy answered with. Abruptly, he latched his mouth onto her nipple, suckling it forcibly into his mouth, simultaneously grabbing the other breast tightly with his hand.

This got the best reacion he had received yet. Lucy threw her head back and called out, "Natsuuu!" Hearing his name come bursting from her, he growled into her soft skin and sucked harder, drawing more of her breast into his hot mouth, laving it with his tongue. When he was satisfied that he had paid enough attention to that nipple, he released the peak of her breast with a noisy pop, and lunged to the other one, giving it the same attentions.

When both nipples had been fully explored–at least enough for that night, anyway–he gently pushed her down so she was lying on the makeshift bed again. Her hair splayed beautifully around her head, almost glowing from the light of the moon that was just coming out. He couldn't stop himself from just staring at her a little, sitting back on his heels to take in her whole beautiful form; the silken locks at the top of her head, the bountiful curves of her chest, the slim dip of her waist, ending at the line of her skirt where he was straddling her.

He was startled out of this examination by the feeling of Lucy's hands ghosting over his bare chest. He had forgotten that he wasn't wearing a shirt, either. And usually he didn't really notice things like that, but he was extremely aware of it now, and aware of the fact that the woman he loved was tracing the lines of his pectorals like they were brush stroked painted by a master artist. When she dropped her hands down to press her palms into each of his individual abs, he growled deep in his chest. "Lucy...that's really distracting."

She smiled up at him with wicked innocence. "Oh? I'm not sure what you mean, Natsu. What could I possibly be distracting you from?"

This time his growl was full-throated as he lunged forward onto her, leaving her only time for a small yelp before he attacked her mouth with his own, bringing his hands up to knead her breasts ruthlessly. He smugly noted her voice turn quickly back to breathless gasps, instead of trying to tease him further. Natsu didn't let himself enjoy this victory very long, however, instead dropping his head down to taste her breasts again. She arched her back, pressing her flesh deeper into him, and cried out as he sucked and bit, .

After several minutes, he forced himself to tear away from his place on her chest. He had seen some other things he wanted to explore when he had been staring at her body. He smoothed his hands down her sides, enjoying the feeling as his hand dipped in at her waist. He trailed down to her hips, and gripped them tightly once he got there, as much to hold her in place as for the joy of feeling her body. Once he had her secured, he proceeded to trace his mouth down the curves of her abdomen, stopping to dip his tongue in her navel, and making sure he paid attention to both sides of her body. When he arrived at her hips, Natsu laved his tongue over the defined bone where it jutted out gently, nipping it and suckling for a little bit, before repeating this process on the other side. Lucy's fingers stayed rooted in his hair while he explored the rest of her torso, emitting an endless stream of sensual noises.

Once Natsu had finished with her hips, he pulled back far enough that he could reach his hands down to Lucy's calves. He smoothed his hands slowly up her legs, enjoying the full, feminine feeling of them. When he reached her thighs, he slid his hands beneath her legs and continued to move them upwards to cup the full swell of her ass. He started to grip it tightly, and then suddenly stopped himself.

This was it. He was officially at his limit. Natsu knew that he had to stop now, or there would be no stopping.

He groaned loudly into Lucy's stomach, then pushed himself up off of her, shifting his body from where he straddled her waist so that he was seated on the ground next to her instead. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to do so, but he looked steadily at the ground, willing himself to keep his desires in check. Lucy had almost been raped last night, he was pretty sure that the last thing she would want right now would be sex. And if he continued any longer, he wouldn't be able to prevent that.

Lucy deserved better.


	13. Chapter 13

Lucy blinked up at her suddenly clear view of the night sky above. She lifted her head enough to look at her dragon slayer next to her. "Um...Natsu?" she asked in confusion.

He abruptly stood up. "I'm going for a little walk. Be right back."

And before she could react, he strode off into the trees.

She sat up and ran through the events of the last few minutes in her mind, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong. Did Natsu not like her body? Did he just not want to tell her because he was worried about hurting her feelings? She knew that she wasn't the skinniest girl in the guild, but she had hoped it wouldn't make this much of a difference to him. Or maybe he had gotten upset because she hadn't done anything to him? She slapped her cheeks lightly. Sitting here speculating isn't going to solve anything, she scolded herself. I should go find him and ask him directly. If he wants me to do something different, I can. And if he really doesn't like my body...she didn't have a good answer for what she would do if that was the case, but she was determined not to lose Natsu. Resolved, she stood up, and immediately swayed sideways. She managed to catch herself before she tipped over, remembering belatedly that she had fallen somewhere around a hundred meters or so today, with several thunking stops along the way.

She straightened up. That's not going to stop me. I'll just have to make sure I go slowly, she determined, and draping Natsu's vest over her shoulders to cover her chest, wobbled off in the same direction she had seen him go.

It didn't take her long to find him, as he hadn't gone very far from their campsite. She saw him leaning against a tree, his slumped back to her. As she got closer to him, though, he turned around and located her in the dark. His face showed first surprise and then anger, and he strode briskly towards her until they stood nose-to-nose. Lucy couldn't help feeling a little giddy with the closeness of their mouths, and realized she had been staring at Natsu's when she heard him speak to her.

"Lucy, what are you doing?"

She tore her gaze from his lips. "Huh?"

His dark eyes bore into hers. "I told you that you weren't allowed to walk anywhere today, remember? And why aren't you wearing your shirt?"

She puffed her cheeks up in frustration. "You just ran off on me!" she accused. "I wanted to come after you and...and make sure..." she looked away, scared of finding out if he really did think she was unattractive.

"Make sure what?" Natsu prodded.

She sighed. Might as well get this over with. "Why'd you leave all of a sudden? We were...well, you know...and you just walked off. Did I do something wrong? Or...or is it that you don't..." she trailed off.

He reached out and placed his knuckle under her chin, gently tilting her head back up so their gazes met again. This time, his was softer. "That I don't what?"

Lucy braced herself, and let it spill out in a rush. "Do you not think I'm attractive? I mean, I know that I'm not as skinny as a lot of other girls, and there are plenty of prettier ones, and I probably weigh more than I should like Happy says all the time, but if that's a problem for you, I can–" She was cut off by Natsu's mouth descending on her for a fierce kiss.

He pushed back from her just as forcefully as she stared at him in shock. He growled, "Don't even finish that thought! You are perfect, and there is no way in hell I'd want you to change! And damn, Luce, why would you think that you're not pretty? Hell, you're gorgeous. You're the most beautiful woman in the world. Didn't you see how I was just touching you?"

Lucy shook her head. "Yeah, I also saw how you abandoned me. Please just tell me if I did something wrong, Natsu. I...I want..." she was too embarrassed to finish, reaching out and resting her palm on his bare chest instead.

He snatched her hand off of him like it was covered in spikes. "Lucy, I didn't stop because I think you're not attractive. It's just that...well, you're too damn attractive. I don't think I could have stopped myself if we had kept going, and I want to respect you. Especially after what almost happened to you yesterday."

She felt her heard pound. She took a step closer to Natsu, letting his vest fall loosely off her shoulders in the process, so that her breasts were pressed softly into his chest. "Maybe I didn't want you to stop," she whispered huskily.

She heard his breath catch for a moment as he stared at her, and then she suddenly felt herself swooped off the ground. This time, however, his hold wasn't an innocent bridal carry. He took a firm grip on her ass, and rested her hips just slightly above his, pushing her back gently up against a tree. As he placed her in this pose, she instinctively wrapped her legs around the small of his back, opening herself up to him so she could feel his erection pressing between her thighs. She gasped as he leaned into her slightly and his clothed cock pressed against her clit, sending a shooting line of electricity through her body. The sparks spread more as he started to suckle at her neck, pressing his erection gently against her in a steady rhythm. "Natsuuuu," she moaned low in her throat.

He drew his head back so he could look at her, but didn't stop his gentle rocking into the apex of her thighs. "Lucy," he panted heavily, "if you don't want to have sex with me, I really, really need you to tell me right now. I won't be able to stop any more."

She tightened her legs around his waist, hooking her ankles so he couldn't get away. "No, Natsu, mooore, pleeease," was all she managed to say.

Lucy looked up just in time to see him grin dangerously. "Whatever you want, love." Without waiting for a reply, he lowered his hand down in between their hips, and slid the crotch of her underwear to the side. He immediately took advantage of the new access he had to her, sliding his fingers up along her slit. She let out a little cry as he reached her clit with the tip of one finger. He ran his finger over it again, and seemed to like what she did when he touched it. He began to work his fingers up and down her lips, making sure to stop and rub little circles into her sensitive spot every few strokes. She began to squirm in his arms, and felt more moisture growing in her vagina.

Natsu, however, seemed to be content to take his time. Slowly, he parted her lower lips, and reached one questing finger inside, dipping it in just enough to touch her pooled arousal. He sucked in his breath at this obvious sign of her lust for him before thrusting his finger abruptly inside her up to his knuckle.

This elicited a sharp moan from his partner. The feeling of his rough digit entering her made her legs feel weak, and she struggled to keep her grip on Natsu's hips. As he began moving it in and out, however, it was all she could do just to keep them wrapped around him as she reveled in the feeling of his finger pulsing at her vagina. After a little bit of this, he added a second finger, and began to pump harder into her. She tipped her head back and mewled as he continued to pleasure her.

As suddenly as he had started, he stopped and withdrew his hand from her. Dazed, Lucy looked down to see that he was using his hand to loosen his pants. He struggled with the fastenings for a minute, but eventually he succeeded in undoing them. They sagged on his hips before falling to the ground with a soft thud. Lucy thought that was odd, but soon stopped caring when she saw Natsu's cock.

She gulped. "N...Natsu? Are you sure t-that's going to...going to fit?" she squeaked.

She didn't miss the obvious pride that passed over his face before it was replaced with a soft, loving look. He touched his forehead to hers. "Shhh, Luce, it'll be fine. I'll be gentle. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Let's just figure this out together, ok?"

She nodded, and steeled herself for the unknown territory they were entering.

Natsu grasped the base of his cock and guided it to her weeping opening. He placed the head against her lower lips and gently leaned in to her, pushing inside as he did.

Her head whipped back sharply as her mouth opened in a silent wail. It was thick, and the sensation of being stretched was incredible, assaulting her senses as he inched inside of her until she felt him meet the resistance of her virginity. He stopped, and asked questioningly, "Lucy?"

Not lowering her head, she managed to reply breathlessly, "It's ok, Natsu, keep going. It's just because I haven't had sex before."

She felt rather than saw him nod, and he gently continued to press into her until she felt a sharp snap. Her whole body jerked, and tears streamed out of her eyes. Natsu quickly withdrew from her, asking frantically, "Lucy, are you ok? What was that?" Gently setting her feet on the ground, he took a small step backwards and tilted her face down towards him. "Lucy!" he repeated more urgently.

She gave him a weak smile, and couldn't help a little chuckle. "Geez, Natsu, you really are an idiot. Don't you know about what happens to a girl her first time?"

His eyes showed his worry as he replied, "No, I don't, ok? My dad never really talked to me about that stuff when I was a kid, and I'm not really sure how much that would have helped coming from a dragon, anyway. I've heard guys talking around the guild, but not about the first time. So what the hell happened?"

Lucy couldn't contain a little laugh. "This is totally normal for girls. We have a barrier inside of us that breaks the first time we have sex. My mom told me that it hurts at first, but then it's fine after that. So it's really ok, Natsu. Please. I want to keep going." She pushed her hands down lightly on the tops of his shoulders and hopped up on her toes, indicating her desire for him to lift her up again.

He sighed. "All right, but as long as you're down here, let's get the rest of your clothes off." He dipped his head down to her chest, giving her nipples a few kisses before bending down and rolling her underwear and skirt off. As her skirt passed her hips, he drew in a sharp breath. "Lucy!" he hissed.

His reaction alarmed her. "What?" she demanded.

"You're bleeding!" he replied, and she could hear a note of panic in his voice.

She giggled at him again. "Well, yeah. The barrier is made of blood. It will bleed a bit, but this won't happen any other times we have sex after this. Seriously, Natsu, I"m fine. Now come onnn, pick me up again," she cajoled, jiggling up and down a little in her impatience.

Her breasts bouncing up and down in front of his face seemed to make her case for her. He still looked concerned, but he nodded and hiked her thighs back up to rest on his hips again. Once again, he positioned himself at her opening. This time, he thrust fully into her, burying his entire cock into her in one smooth movement.

She dipped her head down sharply and winced as he entered her. It still hurt, but not as much as the initial breaking of her barrier had. She heard him ask, "Are you ok? Do you want me to hold on for a minute?"

Lucy shook her head back and forth. "No, I want you."

Natsu didn't seem to need any further encouragement. He pulled out partially, and then thrust back inside of her with a snap of his hips. She let out a sharp, wordless cry as he filled her completely, the apex of his hips hitting her clit and sending another current of pleasure throughout her, overriding her fading pain. He began to thrust into her with an erratic rhythm, sloppy but pleasurable to both of them. Eventually he found and settled into a regular tempo, drawing moans from his partner with each thrust.

It didn't take long for Lucy to start feeling heat gathering low in her abdomen, right above where they were joined. Her moans reached higher as the sensation gathered. Suddenly, with a particularly deep push that ground harshly into her sensitive nerve bundle, Lucy arched her back violently as she was paralyzed with dizzying waves of euphoria throughout her entire body. "Naaaaaatsuuuuuu!" The cry was ripped out of her lips, unbidden, and Natsu stopped moving as her body continued to quake for what seemed like forever. Finally, the contractions ended, and she slumped weakly in his arms, looking down to meet his startled eyes.

"What was that?" he asked with wonder. "Was that you having an orgasm?"

She flushed furiously, glaring at him. "Yeah, it was. Why?"

He gave her a quick, open-mouthed kiss. "It just felt amazing, so I wanted to know. You tightened up so much on my cock, and I could feel your pussy pulling at it. I didn't know girls did that when they orgasmed."

If it was possible, she blushed even harder, and smacked him lightly across the head with her open palm. "Shut up, idiot. Anyway, aren't you going to...you know, finish?" she asked awkwardly.

He smiled gently at her. "Nah, I can take care of that later. I just wanted you to feel good."

Lucy locked her arms and legs around him tightly. "No, I...I want you to finish in me."

His eyes widened at her. "But Lucy, I can't do that."

She glowered at him. "I said it's ok, didn't I? I can get medicine for it once we get back into town so I don't get pregnant, so it'll be fine. I want you to–to come in me!"

At her words, his cock twitched inside of her. His haphazard grin was back. "Well, I guess if you insist, then." Natsu leaned his head down to her neck, and bit into the base as he began to pound into her again, this time with more urgency. At his first thrust, she let out a little yelp, unprepared for the completely new sensation that was created by his dick in her now overly-sensitive vagina. After only a few snaps of his hips, however, his thrusts into her grew shallower and erratic, until she felt his body tense up. He sank his fangs deeply into her shoulder with a sharp grunt as he spilled his hot cum deep inside her.

Panting heavily, he withdrew from her, sinking them both down to the ground with Lucy seated on his lap. She collapsed into his chest, both of them heaving.

They sat that way for a few blissful moments, until Lucy said breathlessly, "Wow. That was...incredible."

Natsu nodded into her shoulder. "You felt amazing, Luce," he replied, shifting her so she was sitting sideways on his lap. Their eyes met and they exchanged a loving look before sharing a long, soft kiss. Natsu broke the kiss to reach over and gather up their clothes before hefting his celestial mage up into his arms and standing up. Lucy's eyes were already starting to close again, and she allowed herself to drape loosely in his grip. She vaguely felt the warmth of the fire on her again, and the sensation of being lowered down onto something soft before she surrendered completely to sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

That night, Natsu slept much better than he had in the past few days. He woke up feeling energetic, even though the sun was still peeking its way over the horizon. He turned his head to look at Lucy, admiring her quiet beauty while she was sleeping. He still couldn't believe that the stunning girl using his arm as a pillow was his. That she wanted to have sex with him. Loved him. He held up his left hand and turned it over so that his ring caught the light of the sun, making it look like it really was made of fire. This ring was proof that she really loved him. Natsu let his hand drop back down, and turned to stare at Lucy. He knew he should get up, but he really wanted to watch her. Just for a bit.

He allowed himself about ten minutes to study the contours of her face, the soft curve of her lips, the feathery lashes that seemed much longer than any human had a right to. Finally, he gave a whispered sigh, ghosted a kiss on top of her head, and delicately worked his body out from underneath hers. He could have happily studied her for hours, but he knew that he needed to start the day. He really wanted to get Lucy back to town today, so she could relax in the comfort of her own home.

His first order of business upon getting up was to make sure that Lucy really was ok, both from her fall and from having sex. She had seemed to be in a lot of pain, although she had tried to cover it up. He knew that her pleasure at the end had definitely been real, but he was still worried that she may have been in pain anyway. He hiked up the clothing that he had draped over her legs and gently spread them. The sight that greeted him made him suck in his breath sharply through his teeth. The insides of her thighs were bloody. He replaced her cover, and sat back on his heels, trying to decide what to do. He definitely had to clean her up. But how? He cursed himself yet again for not bringing any supplies with them. He supposed that he'd have to use some piece of clothing. His vest would probably be the best choice. Then a sudden thought struck Natsu. Unless Lucy happened to have a handkerchief in her pocket. He knew that she occasionally carried one, when she was going to a book store. She liked to be able to clean off the older tomes without harming them. Rifling through her skirt pockets, he found exactly what he was looking for, and thanked his lucky stars that he could go back into Magnolia with a shirt on.

Having acquired what he needed, Natsu headed off in the direction of the nearby stream. He had noted it the night before, pleased that it had been so close to their campsite. He reached it fairly quickly, dipped the cloth in, and frowned. The water was cold. Refreshing for a bath or a drink, but he was sure it would wake Lucy up if he suddenly started to wash her off with it.

Of course! he realized. I'll just warm it up on the way back. He held the wet cloth in his hand, and slowly focused his magic on his palm so that it would be the right temperature to heat the handkerchief, but not evaporate all the water out of it. By the time he got back to the clearing, he was pleased with the results, and gently started to clean up Lucy's legs while trying not to wake her. Luckily for him, she was so deep in slumber that she hardly reacted to his touch at all, except to mumble quietly and turn her head.

Once he was certain that his partner was clean, Natsu discarded the cloth and sat on the ground next to the makeshift bed so he could continue his inspection. He cautiously turned Lucy's head so he could get a better look at the lump she had been sporting yesterday. He felt it and sighed to himself. At least it hadn't gotten any bigger. That had to be a good sign, right? He made a mental note to have Wendy look at it as soon as they got back to the guild. As he released her head, he caught sight of her shoulder and froze. There were deep puncture marks where he had bitten her yesterday. Natsu brushed his finger over it, and winced. They looked like they'd hurt. He was probably in for a Lucy kick for that one.

He did a quick scan of the rest of her body, making sure she didn't have any glaring injuries that needed to be tended to. Thankfully, all he found were some cuts from her fall, and several small bites and bruises where his mouth had been the night before. Just seeing this proof of their coupling was making him want more.

He looked for something to divert his attention, and found it. Lucy's ring. He gently picked up her hand and turned it a bit so that the gemstone caught in the new morning light. It looked right on her. It had felt so right, too, sliding it on to her finger. Natsu had wanted nothing more in that moment than to cement his love onto his best friend in some concrete way, and the ring had presented itself perfectly. Looking at it on her sleeping, naked form made him question it a bit, however. He had been absolutely sure about what he was doing when he put the ring on her, but she had hesitated with his. He wondered now if she understood that he had meant the symbolism behind where she wore her ring now. He would gladly marry her, love her, care for her the rest of his life. Or, as his dad had told him, be her mate. But had she understood that? Had she been thinking the same thing when she put his ring on? Did she even want that from him? Natsu was suddenly very aware of the fact that he had been the most outspoken of the two in declaring a depth of feeling. What if Lucy wasn't ready for a deeper level of commitment? Sure, it was easy to feel like they'd been together forever, since they'd spent so long working on their relationship as friends, as partners who would unquestioningly trust the other with their life. But marriage–mating–was something entirely different. And he wasn't quite sure how to broach that subject with the beautiful girl he had slept with the night before.

Well, sitting around here won't do me any good. I might as well go take a bath before Lucy wakes up, he thought to himself. He got up, stretched, and made his way back to the stream.

Shedding his remaining clothes in one swift movement, he plunged noisily into the water and completely submerged himself. The cool shock felt good at first, until it sank into his back, stinging sharply. He burst out of the water with a loud whoop, and reached his hand up to feel the skin on his shoulder blades. Once he had, he smirked. It seemed like Lucy had gotten some revenge on him for the bite mark he had put on her neck.

A noise from behind him made him turn around with a grin. He'd recognize Lucy's footsteps anywhere. The grin quickly turned into slack-jawed appreciation as she drew closer and he saw that she hadn't bothered to put her clothes back on, instead electing to wad them up in a bundle that she carried on her hip. She reached the bank in front of him and jutted her hip out, placing her hand on it and giving him a pretend glare.

"Natsu," she scolded with laughter in her voice, "What do you think you were doing, coming to have a bath without me?"

He stared up at her, greedily taking in the sight of her breasts and hips from his new, lower vantage point. "Uhhh..." was all he managed.

She smiled at him, dropped her clothes, and jumped in directly in front of him, shrieking as she flew through the air, "Catch me!"

Natsu barely managed to rouse himself out of his lustful stupor in time to catch Lucy messily in his arms, sending a shower of water down over both of them as she laughed happily.

"Lucy!" he managed to gasp out. "You shouldn't be running around like that! You still have a pretty decent bump on your head, you know!"

She puffed her cheeks out at him. "I know."

He continued. "And aren't you sore from...well, sore anywhere else?"

Lucy gave him a seductive smile and leaned her face close to his, whispering, "Hmm, it's just a dull ache. It feels nice, since it's reminding me of how you were inside of me."

Natsu's already erect cock sprang up higher, hitting Lucy's ass.

A quick moment of surprise passed over her face, followed by blatant lust. "It looks like you're ready to remind me of that feeling more directly," she whispered into his ear.

That did it. With a snarl, Natsu descended upon her lips, shifting her body so that her legs floated around his waist, and grabbing her breasts tightly. His partner moaned into his mouth, and he wasted no time in exploring other ways he could get her to continue this delightful exchange of noises on his lips. He worked his hands up and down the insides of her thighs, massaging and squeezing alternately. He ran his hands up to her ass, kneading it the same way he had her breasts the night before. His hands then trailed up her back to tangle in her hair as he pulled her mouth closer to his, wanting to taste her voice as she groaned for him.

Finally, he allowed his hands to loosen, and drew away from Lucy, both of them panting as they stared at each other for a long moment. Natsu gave her a crooked grin. "Are you sure you're ready for another round?" he asked, half seductively and half out of concern.

She looked at him from under her long lashes, and simply nodded.

He wasted no time in returning to her body. His first concern, now that he had made sure to thoroughly kiss her, was to give the same treatment to her breasts. He drew his hands over her nipples, and pinched them roughly. He kept his eyes riveted on her chest, admiring how the thin sheen of water over her skin made her look like a living marble statue. One that heaved up and down with anticipation. Natsu greedily plunged down over the crest of one slick mound, flicking the nipple back and forth with his tongue as it was imprisoned in his mouth. Lucy uttered a full-throated cry, and he reached up to place his left hand over the front of her neck. Since his mouth was busy he couldn't absorb her moans, he wanted to at least feel them being ripped through her body. He increased his attention to her nipple to a fervor, humming as his partner's wails rose equally.

By now, his cock was starting to get sore from how stiff it was, but Natsu made certain to pay the same attention to her other breast first, enjoying how the vibrations from her throat caused his ring to reverberate on his finger.

Finally, he drew back from Lucy, more than ready to hike her body up and enter fiercely. Before he could do that, however, Lucy took control of the situation by reaching between their bodies to grab firmly onto his dick. Natsu hissed involuntarily as she took a hold of it and began to rub it gently up and down in her closed fist. Her strokes were deliberate, much slower than he craved. He began to buck his hips into her hand, desperately trying to increase her pace, but she just continued her steady torture. He gritted his teeth and tried to bear it as long as possible, until Lucy cupped his balls in her other hand.

That was the last straw. With an inhuman snarl, Natsu hauled her bodily out of the water and plunked her unceremoniously onto the river bank. Stepping forward so that his hips were even with hers, he slid his hands up the insides of her thighs and parted them to expose her core to his waiting cock. He started to grab onto it to guide it into Lucy's ready vagina, but was beaten to it once again by his celestial mage. She took a hold of the base, just as Natsu had last night, and guided it to her slit. Once his head was inserted, she let go of his member and instead anchored her hands in her favored hold around his shoulders, waiting with a steeled face for his insertion.

Natsu was torn. Half of him wanted to fuck her, hard, and make her screams echo throughout the woods they were in. The other half of him was still deeply worried that more sex would just lead to more pain and blood for his love. Lucy noticed his hesitation, and looked up into his eyes. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He softened. He couldn't hurt his girl any more. "Just trying to get some control before I start," he replied in what he hoped was a nonchalant voice. "I don't want to be too rough."

She blushed and looked away. "Don't worry about that, Natsu. I...I liked when you went harder in me last night. I want more of that."

That did it. All shreds of self-control snapped like a burnt twig as he drove his cock deep inside of her in a single harsh thrust. Still, he watched her face carefully, and was pleasantly shocked to see no trace of pain on it. Instead Lucy's mouth curved into a silent O shape as he rubbed along the insides of her sex.

He had to make sure that this was really going to be ok if he lunged hard. Besides, that's what she'd said she wanted, right?

Accordingly, Natsu yanked himself out before crashing back into her body. Still no sign of pain, and this time there was an actual cry of pleasure coming out of that beautiful oval. Finally satisfied, he allowed himself to settle into a steady, hard rhythm that rocked both of their bodies together violently. He quickly found that his forward snaps pushed Lucy's pussy too far off of his cock for his liking, so he anchored his hands onto her hips and penetrated deeper. This seemed to be too much for Lucy, and she collapsed backwards onto the grass of the bank as he continued to drive in and out of her. He reached up again to feel the tantalizing moans that were coming out of his partner's mouth, feeling the vibrations in his ring like a direct connection into her very lungs.

As he did, however, he happened to look up, and saw that her moans and heaving breaths were making her breasts bounce up and down in tantalizing ways, added to by his own thrusts. Fuck, thought Natsu, I can't finish yet. Lucy hasn't come! But damn, she's just so fucking sexy. What do I do? Panicked, he stopped moving for a second and ground his pelvis around in a circle to bide time until he could think of something to help him last longer. To his surprise, Lucy let out low, loud moans as he did this, and he realized that he must be grinding into that small spot that he had discovered last night. With relief, he continued to undulate into her to increase her pleasure, while trying to extend his erection as much as possible for her.

Finally, he felt ready to continue, and resumed his thrusts with savage new vigor, driving deep into Lucy's vagina. After only a few driving motions, Lucy's back arched keenly off the ground as she screamed out a strangled version of his name. Once again, Natsu basked in the feeling of her contractions as she orgasmed tightly around him. He quickly felt his end coming, too, and buried himself deep inside as he emptied his cum into her.

After they both came down from their highs, he grabbed Lucy around the waist and dragged her back into the stream. She screeched as her body hit the cool water, exclaiming accusingly, "Natsu, what are you doing?"

He looked at her as if she were crazy. "Cleaning you off. You don't want to walk around with dirt on your ass from sex, do you?"

She had the grace to blush as she glared daggers at him. "Fine, but you don't have to wash it off so thoroughly," she snapped.

"Hmmmm." Natsu hummed into her neck in reply, continuing to rub her plump rear. Just to make sure there's no dirt, he told himself.

Lucy huffed at him and slapped his arm. "Ok, I"m clean already. Let's get out! It's freezing!"

He laughed. "It's not that cold!" but released her anyway and followed her out onto the grass.

Lucy picked up her clothes, then grabbed Natsu's. Her hand sunk down, unprepared for the sudden weight of his pants. "Hey, Natsu, what's in here, anyway?" she asked. "I noticed last night that they seemed heavy, too."

He beamed at her with blatant self-satisfaction. "Oh, yeah! I'd totally forgotten about that." He grabbed his pants and dug his hand into the pocket, pulling it out to show off his prize. "Ta-daaa!"

Lucy looked at it incredulously. "Natsu, is that the book we were looking for?"

"Yup!" he replied proudly.

"How on earth did you find it?" she demanded.

"I found it near where you fell off the cliff. I thought that...that if I did find you, you'd be pissed at me if I had just left it there. I was kinda just trying to keep myself going. If I had the book to show you, then I had to find you, right?"

Her eyes misted over bit. She lunged at him and gave him a long, passionate kiss.

Natsu smiled at her fondly when she finally drew back. "Let's get you dressed, Lucy. I don't want you to catch a cold."

They helped each other get dressed, with many short delays for caresses and kisses, then started to walk back to camp. Natsu reached out and grabbed Lucy's hand, running his fingers over her ring. She looked sideways at him, opened her mouth, then looked away and closed it again.

He leaned his head over so it was in her field of vision. "Hey, Luce, what's up?"

She still didn't look at him, but at least gave him a reply. "Well...I've been thinking...what exactly are we?"

Natsu's brow furrowed as he tried to puzzle out her meaning. "What do you mean?"

She sighed. "I mean...well, are we dating, or are we just friends who sleep together, or what?"

"Oh, that!" he exclaimed. "I know how I feel about you, Lucy. And I can be whatever you want me to be to you. I love you, and I just want you to be happy."

"Then...what about this ring?"

"What about it?"

"Geez, Natsu!" she suddenly exploded. "You can't seriously be this dense! You put this ring on my wedding finger! So what does that mean to you? Do you want to marry me? Are we dating? What the hell is going on?"

By now, they had reached the clearing where they had spent the night. Natsu dropped Lucy's hand and gently took hold of her shoulders, spinning her to face him. "Lucy, I already told you, I love you. I really want you to be my mate."

She blinked at him. "Your mate?"

"Yeah. My dad told me a little bit about it when I was a kid. Male dragons choose a mate, and if she agrees, that's it. They're together for life. Until both of them are gone." He looked directly into her eyes in an attempt to gauge her reaction as he continued, "I've been in love with you for a long time, Lucy. I know that I want this. And if you're not there yet, I can wait for you as long as you need until you know it, too." He was dismayed to see tears start to trickle down her face. "What's the matter? Was it something I said something wrong? I'm sorry, I know I probably came on too strong. I don't want you to get scared, but I want you to know how I feel about you."

Lucy gave a little laugh. "I'm not upset, you dork. I"m happy. I love you too, just the same. I'd love to be your mate."

Natsu whooped his joy, grabbing Lucy around her waist and swinging her up over his head in a wide circle while she screeched her laughter. "Hey, Natsu, put me down! You big weirdo, let go of me!" Her delighted face underscored her harsh words a bit, however.

He finally lowered her to the ground, placing a tender kiss on her forehead, then in between her eyes, then onto the tip of her nose, and finally on her velvet lips. At length, when she was released from these attentions, Lucy's face grew more serious as she asked, "Aren't there some things that you need to do in order to claim a mate, though?"

Natsu was too busy nosing her ear to really pay much attention. "Whaddya mean?"

"Well, there were a few things described about the mating ritual in my dragon book. Don't you know about any of them?"

He shook his head slightly. "Not really. Like I said, Dad didn't tell me much. I was just a little kid, Luce. Besides, what do I care about some dragon rituals? All I know is that I love you, and you're mine forever."He followed that with a little possessive growl, and felt Lucy's body give a small tremor.

Still, she seemed determined to talk to him about this. "You're a dragon slayer. You were raised by a dragon. That makes you a part of the dragon tribe, and as such, you are bound by their customs. There are magical bonds in place to assure that the choosing of a mate is done properly, and with the consent of the female. The book was very clear about what the rituals had to be, and that it was important to follow them to ensure that both parties would be satisfied with such a long union."

Natsu sighed. Obviously, she wasn't about to be dissuaded from this current topic. "I don't really think I care too much about mystic bonds or whatever, but go ahead and tell me what I'm supposed to do, since it seems to matter so much to you."

"Thank you," she acknowledged. "First of all, you're supposed to fight my father for me. Kind of like how humans sometimes ask the father's permission to marry the daughter."

He stared at her like she had a screw loose, which he was beginning to think might be true. "Hey, Luce, aren't you forgetting something? How the heck am I supposed to fight your father?"

She nodded in consent. "It addressed that, too. If the father is no longer alive, any competing male will do. Even if he doesn't want to mate with her, as long as the male fights another male. You're supposed to win the right to mate with me."

Natsu suddenly brightened. "Oh, I think I already took care of that one! Does the moss-headed jackass count?"

Lucy thought this over for a second, then nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I suppose that it does. All right, you got one. But there are still two more parts, and then the ceremony. The next one is presenting her with a suitable gift. You have to give your chosen mate some kind of trinket. It can be anything, really, as long as it can be classified as treasure. And then I'm supposed to give something back to you in return."

With a slightly smug smile, he reached out with his left hand and entwined it in hers.

She blushed a little. "Oh, yeah. I guess the rings do count. The book even said that this dragon custom was where the whole tradition of exchanging wedding rings came to the humans anyway. Rings were a pretty common mating token among dragons, since they were light and still fit all the mating requirements."

Natsu sighed impatiently. "Ok, so I guess I've taken care of that, too. Is there anything else, or can I finish putting out the campfire now?"

Lucy stamped her foot at him. "Try to take this a bit more seriously, Natsu. I know that you're not worried about these rituals, but I am! I don't want to find out what happens when a dragon punishment is doled out on a human body!"

He grabbed her head and kissed the top of it. "I'm sorry. So what's next?

"The last one. I can't make too much sense of it. It's kind of written as a riddle, and says something about 'the crimson exchange' and 'marks of red.' I guess I'll need to look into that more when we get back home. Hopefully I can find something else in the book that helps."

Natsu frowned slightly. Suddenly, it seemed as if this whole mating business wasn't as concrete as he had hoped it would be. He grabbed his partner's hand and said, "Since it looks like I'm not allowed to call you my mate yet, let's do something else." A flicker of fear passed along Lucy's face. "I want everyone to see you and know that you're mine, and for them to know I'm yours too. We already have the rings, so...what I'm saying is, do you want to marry me?"


	15. Chapter 15

"W-what?" Lucy sputtered. She wasn't sure she had heard him right. "Natsu! What is wrong with you? Guys don't just go around casually asking girls to marry them!"

He tipped his head at her. "Well, why not? I love you, and I want you to be mine forever. Seems to make sense that we get married then."

She didn't quite know what to say to her clearly insane dragon slayer. "Natsu," she tried to reason, "Don't you think that's rushing things a bit?"

His brow wrinkled up. "Why? We've been best friends and teammates for years, and I've loved you for most of that time. We know exactly how we work together, and that we'll get along well. That doesn't seem like rushing to me."

"But being friends and in love isn't the same as actually being together!"

"Why not?"

Lucy closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gain the composure to deal with this lunacy. "It's just not. Please try to be reasonable." She winced after saying that. What was she thinking, asking Natsu to be rational? She knew him better than that. He operated pretty much purely on emotion.

Luckily, he seemed to be willing to let the issue drop. He placed a kiss on her forehead, then said, "Well, we can talk about it later. I have all the time in the world now to convince you to marry me. For now, let's just get packed up and get going."

She wasn't totally satisfied with this, but she decided to let the issue drop for the time being. They finished picking up their campsite and headed back to the road, hand in hand. They spent the walk back talking about everything and nothing, simply reveling in each other and the new intimacy they could openly share.

As they drew close to town, Lucy asked, "Should we finish the job first, or just head home?"

Natsu thought about this, then asked, "Which do you want to do?"

Her thoughts turned towards the books that were waiting for her to collect their reward. Her longing must have showed on her face, since Natsu laughed, then said, "Books it is, then!"

She smiled fondly at him. He was right about one thing, at least. They had been friends a long time, and knew that they worked together very well.

They turned their path to the house on the edge of town where Maven Tyndall lived. It didn't take them too long to reach their destination. Lucy dropped Natsu's hand in an effort to show a professional face to their client before knocking on the door. When he opened it, his face showed obvious surprise. "Oh! It's you two!" he exclaimed. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon! Please, come in!" He ushered them into the living room. This time, however, Natsu sat on the couch, patting the cushion next to him to encourage Lucy to sit near him.

"Well, do you have it, then?" Maven asked.

"We sure do," Natsu replied, and produced the small tome.

Maven was clearly delighted. He reached out to lovingly stroke the cover of the book, and said in a hushed tone, "I never thought I would get this back. Thank you both, so much!" He came out of his reverie to indicate a small stack of books on an end table. "I had those books ready for you to select from. You may take any book you wish. I also have your reward money here." He handed an envelope to Natsu, who took it with a grateful smile.

Lucy hardly noticed this exchange. She had gotten up at the first mention of the books, and was rifling eagerly through the small stack. There were several interesting options; an early edition of a classic novel, a history of the Grand Magic Council, a book detailing glass blowing–the Lucy's eye was caught by a red book, one that was the same shade of fiery crimson as the book Natsu had bought for her. She moved a few books off of it, and read the title: "Magical Creatures and Their Mating Habits." Her breath caught in her throat. Could it possibly...she gently opened the cover and leafed through a few pages, skimming until she saw a bold chapter heading that said exactly what she had been hoping for: "Dragons."

She closed the book decidedly, turned to Maven, and said, "We'll take this one, if it's all right with you."

He smiled. "Oh, yes, please take whichever one you'd like. You have my thanks for what you have done."

Lucy smiled warmly in return. "Thank you very much, Mr. Tyndall. It was our pleasure." She heard Natsu snort as she said that, and kicked her heel back to connect with his shin. "We'll be going now, but please don't hesitate to contact Fairy Tail again if you ever have a need for magical assistance." She turned and pulled Natsu up off the couch by his arm, pushing him ahead of her out of the house.

When they got outside, Natsu slung his arm across her shoulders and pulled her in to his side, asking, "So what book did you get, Luce?"

Being casually close to him like this was still new to Lucy, and she felt her stomach flip as he ran his fingertips gently up and down her forearm. At his question, however, she got excited, and practically shoved the book in his face. "Look, Natsu! I can't believe he had this! It tells about mating habits, and there's a whole section on dragons! Hopefully now we can figure out what the last part of the mating ritual is."

He nuzzled the side of her head affectionately. "Well, I still don't see what the big deal is, but I'm glad you're happy, Princess."

She tilted her head to look at him. "Princess? What's that all about? Are you saying I'm spoiled?"

Natsu laughed. "No, I'm not, but I'd love to spoil you. I've always kinda thought of you as being a princess. You're so beautiful and kind to everyone, and you deserve the best, just like a princess."

Lucy couldn't keep a grin from spreading on her face. "Well, then what does that make you? My handsome prince?"

He shook his head. "No way. We both know that's not me. Nah, I'm just a lucky dragon who gets to keep the princess he captured."

She laughed, "You only captured me because I wanted you to. You dork." She pulled them both to a stop on the side street they were now on, stealing a kiss.

Just as the kiss was starting to deepen, they heard a voice from about them, "Ooooh, you liiiike each other!"

They broke away hastily and looked up to see Happy hovering above them.

Natsu's face brightened as Lucy let out a wail and buried her face in her hands. "Hey, buddy! There you are! I hope you weren't too lonely without us. Sorry we left without you, but some stuff came up."

Lucy heard Happy reply, "Where were you two? I was looking for you, Natsu. I had to stay with Wendy and Carla last night." His voice was coming lower, and Lucy cautiously peeked out from her hands, since it didn't seem like the Exceed was going to tease them any more.

Natsu gave his friend a squeeze. "Sorry about that, buddy. We went out on that job, and just got back."

Happy looked up at him. "Well, just don't go away again without telling me, ok? I was really worried." His glance slid over to Lucy slyly. "It doesn't look like you missed me too much, though," he said with a smirk.

Lucy swatted half-heartedly at him. "Oh, shut up, cat!"

Natsu, however, just laughed. "Hey, Happy, we actually have some shopping to do. Do you mind if I meet up with you at the guild later?"

Neither of them missed the slightly forlorn look Happy gave them. "Yeah, I guess that's fine. I'll see you guys later, then." He turned in Natsu's arms and took off, somehow managing to look dejected while in flight.

They both watched him go. "Poor cat, we'll have to make it up to him later," Lucy remarked, feeling a bit guilty at keeping her best friend all to herself.

Natsu nodded. "Yeah. But right now, we have to go get you that medicine, right?"

She gasped. "Oh, that's right! I can't believe I forgot that! Come on, Natsu, let's go!" Grabbing his hand, she pulled them both in the direction of the store that she had heard about at the guild. I'll have to make sure to get more, she thought to herself. It looks like I'm going to be needing it a lot. She blushed, still embarrassed by the thought of having regular sex with Natsu.

Luckily, it didn't take them long to get to the shop, and Lucy managed to convey to the shopkeeper in stammering, vague references what she wanted easily enough. She assumed that she probably wasn't the first girl to ask for birth control in a quavering tone. As they walked back outside, Natsu turned to her with a determined look on his face, and said, "And now I want you to go see Wendy."

Lucy was perplexed. "What for?"

"Don't give me that crap," he snapped. "You fell off a damn cliff yesterday, in case you've forgotten. I want to make sure that you're ok. I don't like that bump on your head," and he cast a worried glance at her injury.

She sighed. "Natsu, I'm fine, really. I don't need Wendy to heal me. I'm just so tired and sore, what I want more than anything in the world right now is a nice, hot shower and to sleep in a real bed."

Her dragon slayer softened visibly at this plea. "Well...I guess we can go clean up and take a nap. But then you're going," he added forcefully.

Lucy couldn't help the little shiver that went up her spine at his protective, no-nonsense tone. She nodded, not trusting her voice to be steady.

Natsu caught up her hand and laced their fingers together. "Ok, let's go, then," he said, and led her off in the direction of her apartment.


	16. Chapter 16

As they entered Lucy's apartment, Natsu heard her let out a small sigh. He smiled, and asked, "You must really be tired, huh?"

She nodded wearily. "Yeah, I hardly slept at all a couple nights ago. I had so much going through my head." She darted a glance over at him, and blushed a bit.

His smile widened. She was just so damn cute. "Me neither. Let's get you cleaned off and into bed for a bit then." He steered her gently in the direction of the bathroom and shut the door behind them.

He turned back around, and his grin turned into a predatory sneer. Natsu reached out and pulled Lucy into his arms, kissing her thoroughly. She returned his kisses with the same fervor. He took advantage of that to probe his tongue into her mouth as he worked at the hem of her skirt, dropping it to the floor. He was working on her underwear by the time that he realized she had succeeded in undoing his pants, too, and somehow gotten both them and his underwear off, revealing his boner that was growing by the second. He broke away from her briefly to yank her shirt impatiently over her head, shedding his vest at the same time. While he was occupied with placing his scarf carefully on the towel rack, Lucy reached over and started the shower. She unhooked her bra and returned to his arms, saying with a slight flush, "The water takes a couple minutes to warm up, so we'll have to wait out here for a bit."

Natsu smirked at her. He replied, "I think we can amuse ourselves for that long," and sealed his lips back over hers. They didn't stay there for long, though, since Lucy soon broke away from him, bending down to the ground in one smooth motion, so that her head was level with his hips. He stared down at her dumbly. "Lucy, what are you doing?" he asked.

She looked up at him, determination in her eyes. He felt his heart pause for a moment at the sight of her face so close to his dick. "You've been just focusing on me when we have sex. I–I want to make you feel good this time." And before his mind could wrap itself around what she'd said, her lips had wrapped around his cock.

He gasped involuntarily as her mouth gently enveloped his length, sliding down until he was fully seated in her hot cavern. She ran her tongue up and down his cock, keeping her lips fixed in place as she did. Natsu buried his hands into her hair, looking for something to anchor himself to. She continued to work her tongue around him, rubbing around his shaft, then sliding up and down again. Finally, she sucked her cheeks in and drew her head back.

He bucked his hips forward at the sudden tightness surrounding him. He looked down at her, and saw her eyes looking up at him as she sucked his cock back in with delicious tightness. Her mouth felt as hot and wet as her pussy did, and the sight of her lips wrapped around him was just too tantalizing. He looked away again as she started to settle into a rhythm with her sucking, not wanting to come too fast from the erotic sight. All too soon, she pulled her lips off of him and stood up.

He looked at her hazily, having a hard time focusing. Lucy smiled at his expression, and grabbed his hand. "Come on, let's get in the shower now. The water's warmed up." She pulled open the shower curtain and tugged him inside with her, closing the curtain again behind them.

Natsu tried to snap out of his blow job fog. Lucy still needed to be taken care of. "Here, love, let me wash you off," he offered. This seemed like a perfect compromise right now, since he could explore her body and fulfill her needs at the same time.

She giggled a bit, and handed him a blue bottle. "Ok, just start with my hair first."

He snapped the cap open and squeezed some of the turquoise liquid onto his palm. He was too concentrated on trying to get the right amount out to notice that Lucy had once again knelt down in front of him. So when she enveloped him in her hot cavern again, he nearly dropped the bottle on her head. Somehow, he managed gain enough control to set the bottle on the shower ledge before settling his hands back into her hair with a tight grip.

Lucy looked up and popped her mouth off of him. "Aren't you going to wash me?" she asked seductively, albeit with a definite blush. Not waiting for a reply, she gripped the base of his cock and resumed her ministrations.

Natsu began slowly working his hands into circles in her hair, matching his movements with the bobbing of her head so that he was pulling her onto him as he worked up a soapy lather in her hair. Suddenly, she reached around behind him and grabbed him firmly by the ass, yanking him forward into her mouth so that the head of his cock pushed roughly into the back of her throat. He let out a loud moan at the completeness of being fully inside her mouth. Lucy eased out of this position, and bobbed her head off and back on to the same depth. She seemed to be comfortable with it, and settled into a rhythm that sucked his head to her throat with each lunge, producing a steady stream of moans from her partner. Natsu felt his orgasm starting to build up, so he yanked her head off so he wouldn't come in her mouth.

She looked up at him worriedly. "Natsu? Was that not feeling good?" she questioned.

He couldn't help a little laugh. "No, that's not it at all. It felt too good, I was about to come."

Lucy flushed. "Oh. Well...you know, I wouldn't mind if you did. I'd kind of like it if you came in my mouth."

Despite the twitch his cock gave at that declaration, Natsu pulled her gently to her feet. "I'd love that too, but not right now. I don't want to finish until you've been taken care of first." He seized her breasts in both hands, savoring the fullness of them in his palms. He pushed back gently on her chest, guiding her so that her back was pressed against the side of the shower. He kneaded her soft flesh, dipping his head down to lick and nip at the tops of her breasts that were spilling out from between his fingers. He made sure to thoroughly service each side of her before moving on to biting and sucking on her tender nipples. As her moans started to echo around the shower, he reached down in between her legs and smoothly slid a finger into her slick opening. A particularly sharp moan let him know that she was receptive to his motions as he started to stroke the inside of her pussy with his fingertip. He twisted and swirled his finger around inside of her, fascinated by the feeling of her walls. They were soft and supple, and yet still felt enticingly taut around his digit. He slowly pushed his finger further inside her, noting the ridges that lined her insides. He tried to reach into her end, to feel where his cock had pounded against her, but found that his fingers weren't quite long enough.

He decided that this would not do. He had to finish exploring her. An idea came to him abruptly, and he took his other hand off of Lucy's supple breast to hook it under one knee, raising it up. He experimentally drove his finger back into her depths, and was frustrated to find that he still couldn't feel deep enough inside of her to trace her end with his fingertips.

This would not do. Natsu drew his finger out of her impatiently, and shoved his cock inside her instead. He groaned as his head reached where his fingers couldn't, grinding his hips into hers so that he could fully bask in the feeling of filling her completely. Lucy squirmed and cried out as he did, and he remembered that in this grating position, he was stimulating her clit.

Shit. He really had to get it together, or he was going to come before she did. Natsu didn't think he could take any more of her sexy moaning, so instead he began to thrust into her pussy, sliding in and out with wet slaps as the shower water lubricated their bodies. He enjoyed the slipperiness that the water created, just like he had that morning in the river. From the way Lucy was gripping his shoulders and digging her fingernails in, it must be feeling amazing for her, too.

Deeper. He wanted deeper inside of her. He lifted her leg up higher, so that her knee was level with his chest, and leaned into her hips harder. They both moaned in unison at the deep tightness. It didn't take very long in this position before Natsu felt Lucy's walls tighten and shiver around his cock as she screamed out a mangled version of his name.

That was all he could take. With a few more sloppy thrusts, Natsu released his cum, holding Lucy's leg tightly until he had emptied himself completely inside of her.

Delicately, he lowered her leg down and gripped her around her waist, making sure she wasn't going to fall down. The limpness of her body was making Natsu concerned about falling becoming a very real possibility. Lucy relaxed into his chest, humming in contentment. "Hmm, Natsu. That was wonderful," she murmured.

He squeezed her, and replied, "Yeah, it was. Now come on, Princess. We still need to get your body washed off. I want to get you checked out as soon as possible."

She laughed. "All right, Dragon. I guess you dragons are very thorough in protecting your princesses."

Natsu pushed her back with a firm nod. "Yep, we sure are. Now where's your soap?"

Lucy reached for a bottle and squeezed some soap onto a pouf, which she then handed to him. "Here, you can do it. I can never reach my back very well, anyway."

He felt a smirk pull up the corner of his mouth. "With pleasure," he returned. Natsu figured that she was giving him permission to enjoy her naked body, and wasted no time in doing so. He was a very thorough cleaner, and after several minutes, her front was clean, and lavished with kisses and caresses. Tenderly, Natsu twisted Lucy around by her shoulders. He raised the wash cloth up to her back, and then froze when his eye was caught by something on her soft skin.

What the hell was that?


	17. Chapter 17

Lucy felt Natsu start to place the pouf on her back, and then pull it back off. She turned her head slightly. "Natsu, what's wrong? Do I have a gash or something?"

She could feel the emotion in his voice as he spoke, a mixture of fear and confusion. "Lucy, you have something on your back."

"Well, what is it?" she demanded. He was starting to worry her a bit.

A pause. The only sound was the steady stream of the water hitting their bodies. "I'm not really sure," he answered finally. "A scratch, maybe? It's this weird red mark, right on your shoulder blade." He indicated the middle of her left scapula with a brush of his fingers. "Did that hurt?" he quizzed.

"No, it didn't. What the hell does it look like?

Another pause. "Well...that's the weird thing, Luce. It kinda looks a bit like...a flame, maybe?"

She was completely perplexed. "A what?"

He lowered the pouf and dropped it to the shower floor. "Hey, I'm just telling you what I see. At any rate, I don't like it. Come on, we're getting out. You're not getting your nap right now, we have to go see Wendy."

Lucy didn't have to look at his face to know that Natsu's expression was as hard as steel. She inwardly sighed, mourning the loss of her nap. "All right."

They got our of the shower and dried off swiftly. Natsu put his clothes back on while Lucy went to dig out a new outfit from her closet. He seemed to be pretty restless, and came over to her a few times while she was still in the selection and preparation process of getting dressed. After much prodding and impatient pacing, Lucy was finally dressed, and Natsu grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out of the door after him.

As they were leaving, Lucy couldn't help but let out a little laugh. Natsu's head twisted around to look at her. "What's so funny?"

She smiled fondly. "Well, I was just thinking," she mused, "I'm pretty sure this is the most that you've ever used my front door instead of my window."

This reply seemed to startle a little laugh out of her partner against his will. "Yeah, I guess that's true," he conceded. "Now come on, let's get going!"

Clearly, she wasn't going to get much conversation out of Natsu until they had set his mind at ease about Lucy's health. Accordingly, she trotted forward a few paces so that they fell into their natural walking synchronization, and made their way to the guild hand-in-hand.

As they approached, Lucy started to feel apprehensive. What would they say to the rest of the guild? How would people react to seeing the two of them together, clearly a couple? She really didn't want to deal with any drama at the moment. She stole a sideways glance at the man holding her hand, taking in his strong features and defined profile. She felt a peace settle over her heart, and suddenly found that those things didn't really matter. She could take on anything, anyone, if her dragon was at her side. Wasn't that how it had always been for the two of them, anyway?

Natsu didn't seem to be having any of these same thoughts of uneasiness. When they reached the guild, he shoved the door open authoritatively and strode inside, scanning the crowd of people for the small blue-haired mage. Lucy, however, immediately noted all the pairs of eyes that turned in their direction. She smiled openly at everyone, but before she could say anything, Natsu was dragging her off to a corner of the room where Wendy, Carla, and Happy were huddled around a game board.

A few feet away from their target, Natsu called out, "Hey, Wendy, we need to borrow you for a minute."

Wendy looked up and started a bit, then gave a relieved smile to her two friends. "Oh, Natsu! Lucy! I'm so glad you're back safely, Happy was worried!"

Natsu brushed off this pleasantry. "Yeah, we're back. Wendy, I really need you to look at Lucy. She fell and got hurt."

The girl nodded. "Of course. Show me where you got hurt, Lucy."

Lucy flushed, and replied, "One of them is on my back. Can we go into one of the private rooms so you can look at it?

Wendy matched her blush. "Oh, of course! I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd have to take your clothes off to show me. Let's go." She stood up and nodded to the two Exceeds. "I'll be right back, you two. Happy, fill in for me, ok?" And she strode to the back of the hall, towards where the private rooms of the guild were located.

Lucy tried to disentangle her hand from Natsu, but found it stuck. "Come on, Natsu, let go of my hand. I have to follow her."

He shook his head stubbornly. "No. I'm going with you." And once again, Lucy found herself being pulled along in the wake of her determined man.

They entered the room that Wendy had selected, and Lucy shut the door behind her. Wendy glanced at the other dragon slayer. "Don't you want Natsu to leave?" she asked hesitantly.

Lucy shook her head, too embarrassed to say anything.

Wendy's lips curled into a delighted smile. "So Happy was right! You two really are dating! That's wonderful, congratulations! I'm so happy for you!"

Lucy smiled back shyly as Natsu proudly curled his arm around her shoulders and answered for both of them. "Yeah, me too,. Thanks, Wendy. But if you know, does that mean that Happy told everyone in the guild?"

Wendy shrugged her slender shoulders. "I'm not sure. I definitely know that he told some other people. But anyway, let's take a look at your injuries, Lucy."

Natsu propelled her forward a bit and spun her around so that her back was facing their healer friend. "First things first, she has this nasty bump on her head," he informed Wendy, and Lucy felt his fingers gently indicate the area he was talking about. Then came the cool touch of Wendy's healing magic, and sighed in relief as she felt the swelling recede. She hadn't even realized how much the lump had been bothering her, both with pain and pressure.

"Well, that's done," Wendy declared. "Now what's next?"

"It's on my shoulder blade." Lucy steeled herself, then gently drew her shirt off her head. Natsu brushed her hair forward so that it was hanging over her shoulder. "Right here," he showed Wendy.

There was a few seconds of silence that made Lucy uneasy. Finally, Wendy gave her verdict. "I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it's not an injury. I've never seen anything like that before. I don't think I can do anything about it with my healing magic. In fact, I sense something in it that feels a little like dragon slayer magic."

Lucy turned her head. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, perplexed.

"Your guess is as good as mine," the younger wizard returned. "Is there anywhere else that you're injured?"

"Nope, that's it. The rest are just little cuts and bruises. Thank you so much, Wendy. That lump was really bothering me more than I realized. It's so nice to have you around to be able to help like that," Lucy gushed, hoping to draw attention off of her mark.

Wendy's face reddened a bit. "Oh, it's nothing I'm always just happy to help people out. Well, if you don't need anything else looked at, I'm going to go back to my game. Happy won't last very long against Carla." She giggled, and left the room.

Lucy reached for her shirt and pulled it back over her head. She peeked over at Natsu's distressed features. "Hey, Natsu, it's ok. I'm all healed up now, and it doesn't hurt anymore. Besides, I think we might have a lead on this mark now."

His eyes flicked over to her. "We do? What's that?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "The new book we just got, silly. Come on, let's go look through that and my dragon book and see what we can find. After all, Wendy said that it felt like dragon slayer magic, right?"

Natsu nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. That's probably our best bet right now." He claimed her hand again. "Let's go, then. The sooner we figure this out, the better I'll feel."

"And the sooner I can get my nap," Lucy quipped as they exited into the hallway.

This time, when they entered the hall, people did more than just stare. A murmur went around the room, but Gajeel was the first to speak up, shouting out, "Hey, Salamander, what's this I hear about you and Bunny Girl?"

At these words, Natsu puffed up proudly, but tried to seem annoyed as he retorted, "We're together. Is that what you wanted to know, iron breath?"

The faces in the hall ranged from shocked to delighted, and there was a moment of dead silence before the guild erupted in cheers and cries of, "Well, it's about time," "I always knew you two would get together some day," "When's the wedding?" and other expressions of similar sentiments.

In all the commotion around them, Natsu wrapped his arm around Lucy's shoulders again, and called out, "Yo, everyone, we're really happy about all of your support here, but we've really got to get going. We'll have to do this later."

This statement earned several cat calls and remarks about what they were leaving the guild to do. Lucy felt blood rush to her face, but Natsu didn't seem to notice the jeers, instead steering her firmly out of the front door of the guild. She turned her head to look at him, and laughed out loud.

He gave her a confused look. "What? What's funny?"

She shook her head. "You are. You look like you finally beat Gildarts in a fistfight."

He smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "Well, I can't help it, Luce. I'm just so proud to be able to tell everyone that you're mine." He flashed his signature sunny grin at her.

They walked the rest of the way back to the apartment with Natsu's arm slung protectively over Lucy's shoulders, simply enjoying each other. However, Lucy didn't miss the tinge of worry that stained her partner's brow. She knew that they'd have to figure out what was going on with her shoulder as soon as possible, or he'd never stop worrying about her. She brightened a bit. And while she was at it, maybe she'd be able to figure out what the last part of the dragon mating ritual was, and they could take care of both issues at once. He might not care, but Lucy was worried about the repetitive warnings the book had issued about an improperly executed mating ritual.

When they reached the apartment, Lucy entered with vigor, feeling inspired and ready to tackle the dragon books. She went straight to her desk and pulled the books over, propping the well-loved history book open to the page that she had been puzzling over, and consulting the table of contents of the new volume to find the chapter about dragons. As she pulled out a spare notebook from one of her drawers, she missed the affectionate look that Natsu shot in her direction before he headed towards the kitchen.

After quite some time, Lucy was broken out of her concentration by a plate thunking solidly down on the desk next to her. She looked up into the firm eyes of her best friend, who said decisively, "Time for a snack break. You've been working on that for a while, and you still need to heal up from all the crap you went through yesterday."

At these words, Lucy suddenly noticed that her stomach did feel pretty vacant. She smiled up at him and said, "Thank you, Natsu." She pushed back the chair a bit from the desk and looked down at the plate to see the most haggard-looking sandwich she had ever seen. It looked like he had simply ripped chunks off of whatever meat he had found in her fridge, and added condiments haphazardly until it looked like it filled up the bread slices. Her stomach wasn't overly concerned about the physical appearance of her food, however, so she picked it up and bit into the concoction. Surprisingly, she found that it actually tasted pretty good, and she devoured it much faster than she realized.

Natsu chuckled as she finished it up. "I'm glad you ate. Looks like you were really hungry."

She nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, I was starving. Thanks for making it. You don't suck at cooking as much as I thought you would."

He clutched his chest in mock agony. "Hey now! That hurts! You could at least pretend to have faith in my skills, Starshine."

The new word caught her attention. "What did you call me?" she asked curiously.

Natsu's cheeks reddened a bit as he grinned. "Starshine. Thought I'd try it out. Whaddya think?"

Lucy was pretty sure he could call her Garbage and she wouldn't mind. "I kinda like it. I think it's sweet," she replied with a small smile.

"Good." He leaned in and kissed her briefly. "So, have you found out anything yet?"

She sighed. "Yes and no. I managed to locate the passage I was concerned about with the dragon mating ritual. It says that, in order for the mating to be finalized, there has to be a 'crimson exchange, love for love, life for life, so that the two lives may entwine to one, and achieve the marks of red.' I still have no clue what that means, so I've been going through the new book we got, and cross-referencing the sections. I do have to say, there's been a lot of interesting detail that the other book didn't have, but I haven't gotten all the way through the description of the mating rituals yet."

Natsu frowned at her. "Ok, that's great, but what I'm really concerned about is that weird mark on your shoulder. Found anything about that yet?"

"Nope. I'm still looking for that."

He scowled. "Well, then what are you wasting your time reading about mating rituals for? I care a hell of a lot more about you being ok than I do about fulfilling some ancient ceremony."

She huffed at him. "I am not wasting time! I'm thinking that the two might be connected, since Wendy said that it felt like dragon magic, and this thing didn't appear until after...you know...after we started having sex. So I figure that it has to be related to that somehow. I can't really think of another explanation that would make sense as to why I would get a dragon magic mark now."

A shadow passed over his face. "So what you're saying is that this is happening to you because of me?"

Lucy reached out and grabbed his hands with both of hers. "No, that's not what I'm saying! I wanted to have sex with you just as much as you did. This is something that we both did together because we love each other. The book is very clear that mating only works if there's mutual love. So if this mark is from something connected to dragon mating, then you should feel better knowing that it's only happening because I love you. Besides, if it is, I don't think we really have anything to worry about. Do you really think that part of a dragon mating ritual would be harmful to the female?"

Natsu looked slowly up at her. "No, I guess not," he admitted grudgingly.

She pressed her forehead to his. "Of course not, idiot. So don't worry, I'm sure that whatever this is, it will be just fine." She kissed his nose, then drew away from him and said, "Now go on, I have to get back to this. My boyfriend is pretty worried and wants me to find out about this, you know."


	18. Chapter 18

Natsu just stared at the back of her head for a second. She was amazing. In the space of a few short sentences, she had managed to not only put him at ease, but had also convinced him that it wasn't his fault and it was going to be just fine, since they could face the situation together. But...what had she just called him? His mouth curled up into a devious grin. "Your boyfriend? I thought we'd talked about that."

She turned back around to face him with a blank look. "Huh?"

He cupped her cheek with one hand, tilting her head up to him, and picked up her left hand with the other. "I thought I asked you to marry me," he replied mischievously.

Lucy pulled her hand out of his and flicked his forehead gently. "This is not the time for jokes."

He placed his free hand on the other side of her face, so that he was now tunneling her vision directly towards him. He grew more serious. "I'm not joking. And I think you know that." For a long, breathless moment, they looked deep into each other's eyes. Natsu decided that a kiss would be a good way to get his point across. He leaned in to lick Lucy's lips slowly, tantalizingly, until she groaned out loud, allowing him to push his tongue into her mouth for further ministrations. As he kissed her, he slowly trailed his hands down the sides of her neck, brushed them briefly over her breasts, and then rested at her sides before breaking the kiss.

She looked at him slightly hazily, but smiled dreamily and said, "Still not convinced, Natsu. And I really do have to work." She turned back around slowly, reluctantly.

He bent down and nuzzled the back of her neck, muttering, "I guess I'll have to do some better convincing later, then. I'll just be happy with these for now," and as he said that, he reached up suddenly and latched his hands onto Lucy's soft breasts. She let out a gasp and dropped her pencil as he began to move his palms in languid circles. "Don't mind me, I'll just be here, making sure you're relaxed while you study," he murmured huskily into her ear.

She shivered under his hot breath. "Um...well, this isn't actually all that relaxing, you know..."

He nipped her ear lobe reproachfully. "Sure it is. It's a massage. You just do what you need to do." As he said this, Natsu gently clenched his fingers into her soft flesh, eliciting anther sharp little noise from his celestial mage.

"Naaatsuuuu," she moaned pleadingly.

"Shhhh," he responded. He let go of one of her breasts to prop up the book she had been reading. "Here, you just look at this, and ignore me back here." As soon as she had a feeble hold on the book, he hurriedly grabbed onto her chest again, this time kneading both breasts together.

To Lucy's credit, she did manage to last through several minutes of Natsu's torture without saying anything further other than some small erotic sounds that escaped her lips involuntarily. He was pretty sure she actually got some research done, too. And that, he decided, wouldn't do at all. Abruptly, he slid his hands down the top of her shirt, and inside her bra. Before she could react, he had latched his thumbs and forefingers onto her pert nipples, and pinched them roughly. Lucy let out a squeak at the suddenness of his attack.

He smirked to himself. He wasn't nearly done. Making sure he had a tight hold on her nipples, he tugged them fiercely, enjoying the sharp cry that he wrung out of his partner's mouth with that motion. Deciding that he liked her reaction very much, he settled into a semi-steady rhythm of tugging her nipples and biting along her neck, until she quaked in his arms.

Natsu gently removed his hands from inside her shirt, and tilted her head back so that it was resting against his stomach, staring up at him languidly. He grinned wolfishly and asked, "How about now, Luce?"

She stared at him groggily. "Huh?"

He felt his cock pulse with male pride at the pleasurable state he had reduced her to. He bent down as far as he could without displacing her head, and whispered, "Will you marry me now?"

Lucy sighed. "Natsuuu..."

He straightened up and stepped backwards, turning around in the same motion so his back was to her. He could feel her gaping at him, though, as she caught herself. "Wh-what was that for?" she asked in confusion.

Natsu couldn't stop the smile from tugging up the corners of his mouth as he answered, "Well, if you don't want to marry me, then you probably don't want me messing around with your boobs. You should get back to work. You've got a lot to do, remember?" Thoroughly enjoying this new game, Natsu walked over to the couch and plopped down on it, feigning sudden interest in a nap.

"Natsuuu, that's not fair! You can't just get me all worked up and then–"

"Can't hear ya, sweetness, I'm asleep," he interrupted, throwing in some fake snores for good measure.

Her sigh was almost palpable. She turned back to her desk in a mock huff as Natsu watched her from a slight gap under the arm that he had slung over his eyes. She finally seemed to settle back into her work, diligently leafing through the volumes and occasionally stopping to write something down in her notebook. Despite himself, Natsu slowly slipped off into a nap like he had threatened.

He didn't know how long he had been out, but what woke him up was the feeling of tight wetness on his dick. With a loud moan, Natsu's eyes shot open, and he looked down in shock to see that the sensation was real, and not an erotic dream he'd been having. Lucy's full lips were wrapped around his length as she delicately bobbed her head up and down on him, sucking deliciously tightly on him as she did. Being woken up to this sight was more than he could take after his prolonged groping session earlier. He groaned loudly, "Luce, I'm gonna–I'm gonna–" He felt her head nod on his cock, producing a new pleasurable sensation that proved to be his end. With a savage grunt, he grabbed onto the silky blonde hair as his cum pulsed out of him, straight into his partner's mouth. He watched in awe as she swallowed it all down. When he was finally done, she released his cock with a wet pop, a string of cum stretching from his tip to her swollen lips.

Lucy looked up at him with glazed eyes and smiled. "That's what you get for teasing me," she said, accompanied by an impudent smile.

Natsu just stared down at her, open-mouthed.

"What?" she asked, seeming to lose a little of the confidence she had just displayed. "Did you not like that? Was it gross that I swallowed it? I wasn't sure what else to do with it. Was it ok?" She looked up at him a bit anxiously.

He gave her a glassy stare. "Can...can you wake me up like that every time I take a nap?"

She stared back at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing. "Well! I'll take that to mean that you liked it, then."

He nodded hazily.

She looked at him with a hint of the laughter still lined around her mouth, and said, "Well, I woke you up for a reason. I think you'll be interested to know that I think I figured out what's going on with this mark."


	19. Chapter 19

That seemed to wake him up fully. He bolted upright on the couch, all traces of sleep instantly dispersed as he demanded, "Well? What is it? Are you going to be ok?"

Lucy couldn't help but feel a warm swell in her chest at his obvious display of concern for her. "Yeah, I'm going to be just fine. Like I said earlier, properly executed dragon mating wouldn't involve anything that would harm either partner."

"So it is from mating, then?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Remember that thing I read you earlier? The mating habits book explained what it means. It's part of a complete dragon text on the mating ritual, but I guess that the author of the dragon book wasn't able to figure out what that last part of it meant."

Natsu huffed at her impatiently. "Ok, great, I'm glad that you were entertained by this. Tell me what it is already!"

She glowered at him. "I was just getting to that. So obviously, there were several parts to the mating ritual, right? And you've already fulfilled most of them: fighting the competing male, exchange of treasure. The last part, 'crimson exchange, love for love, life for life, so that the two lives may entwine to one, and achieve the marks of red,' is the part we need to focus on."

"Yeah, I know! Spill it already!"

Lucy cast an icy look at her dragon slayer before continuing. "As I was saying, the 'crimson exchange' referred to is blood, exchanged during mating. 'Love for love' is just a declaration of love. Once those are completed, then mating marks appear, in the shape of the dragon's magic type. Obviously, we've already 'declared love,' so that part is taken care of. And you took blood from me the first time we had s-sex," Lucy stumbled a bit over the still slightly uncomfortable word. "You bit me, and then you also...well, you took my virginity, and I bled from that. So, I'm guessing that's why I have the mating mark, and you don't yet. I think that part of this is we have to finish the ritual by giving you a mark, too."

"But Luce, you did take my blood already," Natsu replied.

She gave him a blank look. "I did?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, you scratched my back up, remember? Actually, it seems to be one of your favorite things to do during sex. I've got lots of marks all over my back. Wanna see?" Without waiting for a response, he turned around and pulled his vest off.

Lucy sucked in her breath sharply. He was right. His back was riddled with gashes, some deep, some shallow. She blushed. I guess I really do like grabbing onto him during sex, she admitted to herself. Just then, her gaze were caught by a pulsing red light on Natsu's left shoulder. Her eyes widened as she reached out a finger hesitantly towards the flame-shaped mark. She was scared to touch it, though. While the actual shape of the mark didn't change, the red color of it flickered and shimmered, giving it the illusion of it moving like a real fire. That's silly, she scolded herself, and delicately pressed her fingertip against it. Surprisingly, she felt a heat exuding from it, although it was nowhere near the temperature of an actual fire.

Natsu turned his head towards her. "Lucy? What's up?"

Still tracing the lines of the mark in fascination, she replied, "It looks like the scratches were enough of a blood exchange to satisfy the ritual."

She felt his skin tense up under her touch. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well...you have a mark, too."

He turned his body so that he could look at her more fully. "Really?"

She nodded, not taking her eyes off of the quavering light on his shoulder. Impulsively, she pressed her lips to it. The mark felt warm on her mouth, too. She also noticed that it had the same wood-smoke smell that Natsu had, but a little stronger.

Her musings were cut off when Natsu shifted, turning his whole body around and making her lose her place on his shoulder. She frowned at him slightly, curious about his reaction and the serious look on his face. "So does that mean that we've completed the mating ritual, then?" he asked.

She thought about that for a second. "Yeah, it seems so. Those steps were all that were mentioned in my dragon book."

He grinned at her. "Well, it looks like you're my mate, then!" He sealed this statement with a long kiss.

Lucy felt her heart skip a beat, processing this information as Natsu kissed her. He drew back, and she smiled softly back at him. "Yeah, I guess I am." She ran her hand through his tousled hair lovingly.

He turned on his best smile. "Since we're already mates, then, we should just get married, right?" he asked.

She sighed in exasperation. "Natsu! Don't spoil the moment. Mating is pretty much the same thing, anyway, right? I'll be with you forever."

He reached out and grabbed her left hand, bringing her ring finger to his lips. "Promise?" he asked earnestly, kissing her ring.

She caught up his left hand, and brought his ring to her own mouth. "Promise," she mumbled against it.

Suddenly, Natsu stood up from the couch and swooped her up into his arms. She squealed and clutched onto his neck to steady herself as he walked towards her bedroom. "Natsu! What are you doing?"

He nuzzled her ear. "If you think that you can just suck me off once and be done, you're wrong," he growled, sending a shiver through her body. "I need to be inside you."

They'd reached her bed at this point, and Natsu lowered her down onto the covers with a soft whump. Lucy reached up and grabbed his scarf, pulling his head down to hers so she could kiss him passionately. He lowered his body down to the mattress, settling in with his knees on either side of her hips and his elbows resting on the pillows next to her head. He languidly ran his fingers through her hair as he deepened their kiss, and Lucy greedily fisted her hands into his hair in response, making sure he couldn't draw away from her mouth.

When she was satisfied that he wasn't going to try to take his lips off of hers, she reached her hands down in between their bodies to start working on removing his pants. Her fingers brushed over his cock, and she hummed in pleasure to find it already hard again. It took her much longer than she liked to undo his pants and pull them down over his hips, along with his boxers. She wrapped her fingers around his swelling length, and stroked her hand up and down slowly.

Natsu groaned into her mouth, and moved his hands down to the hem of her shirt. He broke away from her long enough to pull her up slightly and yank her shirt over her head before pressing her back down to the mattress.

He clasped his hands over her breasts and squeezed forcefully, making Lucy jerk her head back and cry out. He immediately loosened his grip, rubbing his hands lightly over her chest in apology before closing his fingers again.

It didn't take very long before he reached his hands around underneath her, and tried to unhook her bra. After a few seconds of fumbling, he broke their kiss so he could try to see behind her arched back and have a better chance of undoing it. Lucy giggled through about half a minute of his futile attempts before he finally sat up and crossed his arms over his chest. "Can...can you just do it?" he mumbled, refusing to meet her eyes. Still snickering, she reached one hand behind her, and had the bra off in a matter of moments. Natsu looked at her incredulously. "How the hell did you do that so fast?" he demanded.

She couldn't hold back a full-throated laugh at his wonder. "I've been putting bras on and off myself every day since I hit puberty, you weirdo. Don't feel bad, it took me a while to learn how to do it, too." He still wouldn't look directly at her face, so she continued soothingly, "I guess you'll just have to practice some more, huh?"

That got his attention. He finally focused on her eyes, and gave her a smirk that shot quivers through her legs. "Hmm, I like that idea," he responded, descending his mouth down onto one of her peaks with a suddenness that made her cry out. He sucked the nipple into his mouth, drawing as much in as he could. He released it after several searing seconds, and turned his attention to the other one. But he didn't suckle on this nipple. Instead, he delicately gripped it with his teeth and tugged.

Lucy inadvertently jerked her chest upwards with a sharp gasp at the pleasure. He apparently decided that this was a good reaction, because he continued to tug on her nipple with his teeth, getting gradually more intense with his pulling until Lucy felt unable to do anything other than hold onto his shoulders for dear life.

"Natsu," she whispered.

At the edge of her vision, she saw his head tilt up toward her, and reveled in the sight of his fangs digging into the fullness of her breasts on either side of her nipple. She angled her head further down to get a better look at the erotic sight. Not breaking their eye contact, Natsu closed his lips around the peak of Lucy's breast, still holding her peak firmly. With this new position secured, he began to suck again, occasionally tugging his head backwards to remind her that his teeth were still locked around her intimately.

"Aaah, Natsuuuu."

Lucy felt Natsu's hand brush against the inside of her thigh. She had only a split second to register the sensation before her underwear was shoved unceremoniously to one side, and a finger was inserted roughly inside of her. Her whole body jerked, and her mouth flew open at the sudden penetration. Natsu steadily pumped his finger in and out of her, matching the rhythm to the same pace that he was using to pull at her nipple. Moans began to spill out of Lucy's mouth, and increased their volume as he slipped another finger into her wetness. He drove into her harder, hitting her clit with his knuckles as he did.

The combination of all this was too much. After just a few seconds, Lucy's body exploded in a burst of trembling sensation, her back lifting entirely off the bed as she clutched Natsu's shoulders and let out a prolonged sound that was somewhere between a moan and a screech.

Finally, the contractions died down, and she flopped loosely back down onto the bed. Natsu released her nipple and disappeared from her view. She didn't bother wondering about it, however, until she felt her foot being lifted up by the heel, and a sharp nip being placed on the tip of her big toe. She squealed and jerked her head up to look at the smug face of her dragon slayer. He released her toe, but turned his teeth to the rest of her foot next, nibbling gently along the top of it until he reached her ankle. He dragged his tongue to the inside of her ankle, ending on the inside of her leg, at the circular protrusion of her ankle bone. He wrapped his lips around it loosely, tracing lazy circles with the tip of his tongue. He released her ankle and began to march upwards along the inside of her leg at a deliberate, measured pace, kissing, licking, and nipping at her tender skin along the way.

After what seemed like ages to the transfixed Lucy, he finally reached the junction of her legs. He drew back from her body long enough to lift her hips and slide her underwear and skirt off of her in one smooth motion. She watched fervently as his mouth returned to her apex...and promptly skimmed over it. Instead, he sank his fangs into her hip, then traced his mouth over the seams of her legs. He ghosted his lips over her clit, just barely touching it, making her buck upwards with a frustrated whine. Natsu looked up and met her gaze with mischief in his eyes. "Do you want something, Princess?"

She nodded vigorously.

Natsu lifted his hand up to trace her seeping slit, and whispered against her clit, "What's that? I can't hear you, Princess.

Lucy somehow managed to gasp out, "Naaatsu, I-I need you to-to lick me, pleeeeease."

He darted his hot tongue out to flick her sensitive nerves. "As you wish, my Princess."

His seductive teasing made her stomach flip over as he slid his fingers back inside her and clamped his mouth over her throbbing clit. He started licking and massaging her into a frenzy, teasing and coaxing her along patiently until her body stiffened into another orgasm, his name spilling from her lips as she contracted around his digits.

Natsu waited patiently for her to ride out her pleasure, and then began to lick and suck at her overly-sensitive clit again, now moving his fingers in and out of her as well. He took his mouth off of her long enough to hum, "Hmmm, Luce, you're so fucking wet," before returning to his previous attentions. Lucy suddenly noticed that he was right. She could feel the slick coating of arousal inside of her vagina, allowing his fingers to slip easily into her. As she took stock of this fact, she felt a little bit of the fluid trickle out of her opening and run down the skin in between her legs. This observation was followed by a particularly firm jab of her partner's fingers, and she crashed violently into yet another orgasm.

After she finished, she lay on her back panting raggedly. "Natsu," she wheezed, "How many times are you going to make me orgasm? Don't you want to put it in me?"

With her eyes staring hazily at the ceiling above her, she missed the delighted smile that crossed Natsu's features at her words. "Oh, I do. Don't worry, I don't plan on either of us leaving this bed until I've fucked you good and hard." Lucy's heart jumped at that declaration. "But before that, I think you need to have...oh, probably at least 2 more orgasms."

Lucy looked down at him in horror, only to be greeted by the sight of his head ducking down to lick her again. She groaned wearily, feeling aroused again in spite of her exhaustion. Natsu removed his fingers from her vagina and ran his tongue down her slit, licking up the juices that had spilled out of her well-worked opening. She squirmed under his mouth, and he reached up to grasp her hips firmly in an effort to hold her in place. When all the moisture had been collected from outside of her opening, he inserted his tongue firmly into her vagina, eliciting a small moan from the blonde. He swirled it around inside of her, eagerly lapping up every bit of her lust that his probing muscle could reach. He finally seemed satisfied that he had found it all, and returned his attention to her clit, rubbing it harshly with his thumb as his tongue darted in and out. Lucy felt her muscles strain again, clamping down around him as she moaned in release.

True to his earlier declaration, though, Natsu showed no signs of setting her free her from this sweet torture, simply resuming his ministrations when her tremors stopped. He massaged and cajoled her body until she was once again on the brink of pleasure. Abruptly, he released her clit and withdrew from her vagina, leaving her to blink down at him in bewilderment. Her confusion was short-lived, however. He was just shifting his body upwards so that his questing mouth could reach her ample chest. He devoted the next few minutes to her now-aching breasts, sucking, biting, and massaging every inch of her bare skin that he could access. He hummed contentedly into her skin at the moments when her groans escalated into louder squeaks or high-pitched whines, producing pleasurable vibrations against her skin when he did. As she began to feel moisture leak out of her sex once again, she begged him, "Natsu...Nah-hatsu, please...pleeease, I-I want you in meeee."

His eyes flicked upwards toward her, and she was shocked to see that they were starting to take on the gold, slit-pupil appearance that they had in his true dragon slayer form. Not releasing his bite hold on her nipple, he shook his head in denial, and slid his hand up the inside of her thigh to penetrate her with his fingers instead. The feeling of being filled, even that much, was enough to throw her over the edge yet again.

As the shaking quieted down, she heaved, "Natsu, please, isn't that enough now? I don't think I can take any more, please. Please, I just want you inside of me."

His face grew thoughtful, as he seemed to turn her request over in his mind for a second. "Hmm...nah, I don't think so. Not yet, anyway."

She looked at him, aghast, and protested, "But-but I thought you said you would be done after you made me come two more times! You already did that!"

He bared his fangs at her in a vicious grin, and she was a bit startled to notice that they had grown a bit longer. "No, I never said that. I said I wanted you to orgasm at least two more times. And now I've decided that you need another one." He slid his hand down and began to slide two fingers languidly in and out of her as he continued, "I don't feel like you're really trying hard enough. If you want my dick, you need to ask me better than that." He leaned his face close to her so that their lips were barely touching, and then whispered, "I want you to beg for your dragon to fuck you."

Lucy couldn't take the torture. She shifted her head up to close the kiss, but Natsu drew back and wagged a finger from his free hand at her. "Nuh-uh, Luce, that's very bad. You don't get to do that. All you're allowed to do right now is come for me, and beg me for my dick."

She let out a strangled scream, desperate for the feeling of being filled. "Please! Please Natsu, I need your dick! Put it in me, fuck me hard, ooooh please! I need it so badly!"

"What was that now?"

"Na-Natsu! Stop torturing me! I need you so much! I have to have you inside!" Searching for the sensation of fullness, she began to swing her hips upward to meet the ponderous pace of his fingers inside of her.

He leered at her, pulling up one side of his mouth so she had a clear view of the sharp fangs on that side. "Well, I guess that's good enough for this time. You've been a good girl, so I'll give you what you need." He lowered her head down to her clit, and before Lucy could register it, sucked her clit rigorously into his mouth. A sudden orgasm washed over her, clouding even her vision this time.

When she finally came down, she noticed that Natsu's face was hovering over hers. She pouted at him. "Natsuuu, I thought you were going to fuck me?"

He lowered his forehead to hers, and replied in a low, silken tone, "So I did. Are you ready now?"

She gulped and managed to whisper back, "Yes, please! Please put it in."


	20. Chapter 20

Natsu was almost painfully hard. He'd had to struggle to hold himself back, but he had been thoroughly enjoying his game of making Lucy come over and over. He had finally reached his limit, however, and decided that it was time to give in to his mate's pleas. Clasping tightly onto her hips, he thrust himself inside in one hard motion, pleased that he had been able to get in without using his hand as a guide. He had other places he wanted his hands to be right now. He had to make sure Lucy didn't move while he fucked her. He didn't even give her time to get used to his girth before he pulled back out and started pounding into her at a furious speed, sending her cries higher and higher.

All too soon, however, he felt his cock tighten, and recognized the start of his own orgasm. No, not yet, he thought frantically, and resorted to the grinding motion he had found effective before. While he was waiting for the sensation to fade, he remembered how he had held Lucy's leg up in the shower, and that it had allowed better access inside of her. He decided it was definitely worth investigating. When he felt ready to move again, he looped his arm under one of Lucy's knees, hooking the joint with the crook of his elbow, and bent it upward so that it was pressed against her chest. He looked down at her naked body in satisfaction. Whether it would feel better or not, he definitely liked this view of her, spread and stretched open for him. She lay panting under him, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as her hips gyrated in time with his grinding. He smiled, feeling his fangs biting into his lower lip. She was definitely ready to be fucked, hard.

He began to pound into her, and quickly found that this new position did allow him to get deeper inside of his partner. At his first thrust, her eyes shot open, and she let out a high cry that stroked his manly pride. She kept up a staccato beat of these cries each time his head crashed into her end. Natsu decided that he liked this position very much, and that he wanted to keep fucking his love as long as possible like this. He tried his best to control his urge to come, and had to stop several times and resume grinding to prolong his release. At one such pause, Lucy looked up at him with pleading eyes and whined, "Natsuuu, why'd you stop? I want you to keep going. Please, harder, Natsu."

He gulped and nodded, before turning on his wicked grin. His mate was asking him nicely to be fucked harder, who was he to say no? He began to thrust savagely into the depth of her vagina, and as Lucy shrieked out a final orgasm, he lost control and spilled over the edge with her.

He collapsed on top of her, completely spent from the intensity of their love-making. She groaned softly and slapped half-heartedly at his back, drawing his attention to the fact that he had several new, stinging scratches. "Hey, you big lump, I can't breathe. Get off of me."

Still heaving, Natsu circled his arms around Lucy's waist, and without withdrawing from inside of her, flipped them both over so that she was resting on top of him instead. "That better?" he murmured.

She nodded against his chest, and without looking, groped off to one side of the bed until she had located a folded-up blanket, and tried to drape it over their bodies. Natsu chuckled and took it from her, doing his best to fling it over both of them without displacing his blonde mage. He tried to tilt his head so he could see her face on his chest, and asked, "Are you going to take your nap now, Starshine?"

The only response he got was a vague murmur that might have been "Yes." Satisfied with this, Natsu settled in to stroke her soft hair as she fell asleep. Despite the nap he had taken earlier, he found that his body was still worn out from the events of the last couple days, and felt himself starting to drift off after her. By sheer force of will, he kept himself awake as long as possible, not wanting to let go of the sensation of his favorite person in the world sleeping contentedly in the circle of his arms.

He woke up a few hours later to a dark room, and immediately noticed that the comforting pressure of his mate was missing. Frowning slightly, he sat up, and noticed a tantalizing smell in the air. Following it, he wandered over to the kitchen, pushed the curtain aside, and entered.

Lucy was standing at the stove, wearing her underwear, his vest, and a frilly pink apron. She didn't notice him at first, giving him the chance to enjoy the surprisingly tantalizing sight of her in his shirt. Eventually, she turned around with a pan in her hand, and finally saw him. "Oh, Natsu! You're up!" She started to walk towards him, and then her eyes flicked downwards. She immediately reddened. "Natsu! You're not wearing anything!"

His mouth curled up in amusement. "Yeah, I am," he retorted. "I still have my scarf, see?" He lifted up the end of it as proof.

She closed the rest of the distance between them and whacked his arm lightly with the spatula she was holding. "That's not what I meant and you know it, idiot Dragon!" Despite her harsh words, she planted a short kiss on his cheek before heading to the table. As she walked away, Natsu reached out and smacked her ass, enjoying the squeak that it drew from her. She turned back around to glare at him while he put on his best innocent face. With a sigh and a smile, she turned back around and began to dole out the contents of the pan onto two plates.

This made him remember why he had come into the kitchen in the first place. He rushed over to the table and pulled out one of the chairs. "Hey, Luce, what'd you make? It smells good!"

She gave an exasperated sigh and batted his hand away with her spatula, trying to give off the appearance of being annoyed. She wasn't fooling him, though. He knew her too well. She was absolutely thrilled to be serving him dinner like an old married couple. He could see it in the slight curve of her mouth, and the hidden joy sparkling in her eyes as she scolded, "Wait just a minute! I have to finish putting the food on the plates first!" He waited eagerly while she did so, his mouth watering as he watched her dish out vegetables and meat onto his plate, and realized that he hadn't eaten since he had raided her fridge around lunch time. Finally, she finished, and went to set the pan back on the stove, fetching a basket of rolls off the counter on her way back. She placed them on the table and finally allowed, "Ok, now we're all ready. Go ahead and eat."

Natsu's first instinct was to shovel as much food into his mouth as quickly as he could, but he stopped himself at the last minute. She may be ok with a dragon instead of a prince, but that doesn't mean that she wants a guy who eats like a pig. Keeping this mental scolding in his mind, he did his best to eat with small, measured bites, until he noticed that his mate was staring at him as if he had grown a pair of horns out of his head.

"What?" he asked, baffled. Hadn't he been using good enough table manners?

"Natsu, it's ok. Just because we're having sex doesn't mean that you have to try to impress me. I know that you eat like an animal. It's one of the great things about us being friends for so long before we were together. You don't have to try to put on a show around me. I know you and love you just how you are, you glutton," she said with a tender smile.

He stared at her for a second, then lunged across the table to grab her face and smother her with a crushing kiss. As he pulled back, she blinked up at him in shock. "What was that for?" she demanded.

He brushed his thumb affectionately over her cheekbone as he replied, "For loving an idiot like me." He sat back down and began to eat in earnest, focusing fully on how hungry he was. With his attention on his food, he didn't notice the contented look his partner aimed at him before resuming her own meal.

When they had finished eating and put the dishes in the sink, Natsu wandered into the living room, flicking the light on as he went to sit on the couch. He rubbed his belly happily, satisfied with the full feeling he had now. Lucy wandered in after him, adjusting her skirt on her hips as she entered. She then grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and spread it over his naked lap. He looked up at her with one eyebrow raised, and she shrugged one shoulder. "It's just going to take me a while to get used to you walking around here naked, ok?" He smirked back at her in response. She headed to her desk, grabbed an envelope, and started towards the door, saying over her shoulder, "Just wait there for a minute, I'm going to go pay my rent for next month."

He bounced up off the couch to grab her wrist before she could make it to the door. "Hey, hold up a minute there, Princess. I wanted to talk to you about that."

She looked up at him in confusion. "About what? Paying my rent? I kind of have to, Natsu, or they'll kick me out of the apartment. Turns out it's illegal to not pay for services that you use."

He huffed impatiently at her. "That's not what I meant. I meant...well, I meant that you shouldn't pay it for next month, because you should come live with Happy and me."


	21. Chapter 21

Lucy stiffened. She turned to look at her dragon slayer, just to make sure he was being serious. His face confirmed that he was. She sighed. She wasn't really sure why this stuff was still surprising her. If it were up to him, they'd be retired with 20 grandkids by now. "Let's go sit back down and talk about it, then," she conceded.

She followed him to the couch and let him sit down first, then settled in next to him, curling her feet up to her thighs. He immediately reached out and grabbed her calves, swinging her feet over to rest on his lap. She hurriedly raised her legs up to grab the blanket and place it on him before lowering herself back down. He sighed at her good-naturedly. "So, Luce, why don't you just come live with me?" he asked, rubbing her feet as he spoke.

She glowered at him. "Don't think you can convince me just by massaging my feet for me."

Natsu fluttered his hand to his chest dramatically. "Why, dear Princess, I would never!" He leaned back slightly to dodge the playful Lucy Kick aimed at his head. "Seriously, though," he continued, "you should come live with me. You're already my mate, and we want to stay together. We might as well live together, too. It's stupid for you to pay rent here when you have a perfectly good place you can come live for free. Besides, Happy's going to get lonely all the time like this. I'll be spending all my time with you, and I'll never be home. So my home should just be your home, too. It'll be easier for everyone."

She didn't want to admit it to herself, but those were actually some good points. Instead she countered with, "I've seen your house, Natsu. Do you really think there's enough space there for all three of us?"

He beamed at her. "Happy and I built that house, so I'm sure we could add on some more bedrooms."

Lucy didn't miss the plural form of that word. She knew it, he was already planning for children. She couldn't keep a little smile off her face as she replied, "That's another problem, actually. I saw inside of it, you guys keep it filthy in there! And there's a tree growing in the middle of the floor!"

Natsu nodded. "Yeah, we let that grow there because we thought it was cool. We've patched the roof around it, and we spread out a covering when it rains. We have it all figured out. Besides, if I make you a new room to sleep in, it won't be that big of a problem, right?"

"But I like my place! It has a nice bathroom."

"I'll make my bathroom bigger, too. Whatever you want, Princess, I can add on to it. It's still going to be cheaper than you continuing to stay here, paying rent."

She was starting to run out of excuses. Who knew that Natsu Dragneel could be so...reasonable? She came back to the root of the problem. "Natsu, I guess I agree that it would make more sense to live in your house, but I just don't know if I'm quite ready for that yet. I mean, come on, we've only been together for a couple of days here! This is just insane!"

His face suddenly grew serious, and his hands stilled. "Not to me, it's not. I've loved you for so long, Luce, that this doesn't feel weird at all. I want you to be with me, and for us to be happy forever. And...I kinda wanna make sure you don't change your mind about me." He finished this last thought sheepishly.

Lucy softened. "Yeah, I understand. I sort of feel like this is all a dream I could wake up from at any moment. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. Besides, me living with you wouldn't guarantee that I won't leave. Me loving you, and wanting to love you, guarantees that. But you do have good points about living together. I know that you're definitely not going anywhere. Dragon mating is very final, and besides, you're not like that anyway." He perked up, and she continued hastily, "I do want to think it over for a little bit, though. I have a week before I have to pay my rent for next month, so give me a few days to turn it over in my head, ok? That's about the best I can give you right now."

His hands resumed their massaging motions, working up to her calves. He replied, "I think I can live with that."

She smiled gratefully at him. "Thanks, Natsu." She leaned forward to kiss him softly. Her eyes closed as she got drawn into the kiss, deepening it gradually until their tongues intertwined in a passionate dance and her hands were buried in her mate's hair. When they finally withdrew, panting, Lucy was surprised to find that Natsu's hands had somehow made their way to her breasts during their makeout session. He seemed to notice at the same time, and flashed a grin at her, brushing his thumbs over her clothed nipples. She noticed that his fangs had elongated again, sending a pleasurable tremor through her body. She was really starting to enjoy his love bites. She wanted to return the favor. She moved her feet so they were on either side of Natsu, and scooted forward until she was seated on his lap, straddling his hips. She carefully removed his scarf and draped it over the back of the couch. Lucy looked back at her mate, scanning her eyes over his neck, deciding where to bite first. She noticed the scar he had on his neck, and wondered if he would be more tender there. She leaned forward, flicking her tongue out to trace the outline of the scar. Natsu clenched his hands down abruptly, drawing a soft cry out of her open mouth as his fingers dug into her breasts. Well, I guess he is sensitive there, she thought with satisfaction, repeating the motion. She was rewarded by her mate's fingers clamping tightly onto her nipples. Lucy hummed and settled her mouth down over his neck, kissing, biting, and sucking like he had done to her.

His reactions seemed to indicate he was enjoying her attentions very much. His grip on her breasts tightened, and hardly loosened the entire time she was kissing his neck. After a few minutes, she decided that she wanted to explore other parts of Natsu, and dipped her head down to his chest. She was surprised when he growled at her. Lucy jerked her head up to look at him, and as she did he yanked the vest off of her shoulders, freeing her breasts from their confinement with a bounce.

With a snarl, Natsu dived onto her, pushing her backwards onto the couch. Lucy pouted a bit. "Natsu, I wanted a turn! You always kiss me everywhere, and I wanted to do it, too!"

He looked her over slowly, his eyes lingering on her full chest. He gave her breasts a small parting squeeze, and moved his hands down to her hips. "All right, Luce, you can have your fun. Let's just get this off first." He hooked his fingers on her underwear, pulling it and her skirt down in one motion. He was stopped by her knees, since her legs were still splayed around his waist. Natsu impatiently flipped one of her legs over his head, and pulled her clothes off her legs. Lucy worked her leg awkwardly back around the other side of him, barely managing to get it in place before he lunged on top of her again, descending on her pert nipples with his mouth. She shivered with delight as he lavished her breasts with attention, moaning and gripping him tightly in her ecstasy.

Lucy was so lost in her pleasure that it took her quite a while to see what her partner had done. As realization struck her, her eyes flew open and she slapped Natsu's back lightly. He tilted his head so he could look up at her, but didn't relinquish his hold on her nipple, and continued to suck on it. Lucy's heart turned over at the arousing sight. She focused on what she wanted to say, however, and managed to get out, "Na...Natsu! I want...back on top!" He hummed thoughtfully, making Lucy's chest thrum with the vibrations from his throat. She arched up and gave a little cry. Natsu finally relinquished his hold on her soft orb, and settled in to nip at her neck instead. She squirmed underneath him and shrilled, "Natsuuuu! This is no fair! Come on, let me up!"

He drew back a little to look at her. "Well, I guess I will, since you managed to get out a full sentence this time you asked," he smirked. He hoisted himself off of her, sitting back down on the couch. Lucy bounded up after him, impatiently kicking the blanket onto the floor so there would be nothing that could get in between them. She settled back down upon his lap, straddling him intimately. She put her hands on either side of his face, and placed a sweet kiss on his lips. Natsu embraced her as they kissed, sliding his hands up to her shoulder blades and back down to her waist, giving her a pleasant shiver. He slipped his hands around and snaked them up in between their bodies, so he could continue to explore her breasts. Lucy moaned into their kiss, and started to grind against him inadvertently, sliding her wet lower lips up and down his stiff cock. She shuddered violently as his head ground against her clit, repeating her motions purposefully now, gliding up and down with the slick wetness from her arousal. Natsu started to push his pelvis forward into her as she ground on him, offering more pressure where she wanted it.

She was enjoying herself immensely, when suddenly Natsu pulled back from her, breathing a bit heavily, she noted with some pride. "Luce, stop teasing me!" he barked. Before she could reply, he grabbed her hips firmly, pulled her up, and then sat her back down firmly on his dick. Lucy cried out loudly at the sudden penetration. Natsu grinned viciously, and she had just enough time to note that not only were his fangs longer, but his eyes were golden, before he started to jab fiercely in and out of her, controlling her motions with her hips so she bounced up and down on him, penetrating her over and over. His dick snapped up to meet her as she descended upon him with each thrust, pushing him deliciously deep inside of her. She could feel his tip hitting her womb, and each time it did, she let out a loud moan, keeping time with their lovemaking.

Lucy was so lost in her pleasure, that it took her quite a while to remember the reason she had wanted to be on top of him in the first place. She braced her hands on her mate's shoulders, stopping herself from descending down upon his waiting cock. He looked up at her, and she noted those golden eyes again, with cat-like slits for pupils. "What's wrong?" he asked, confused.

She felt a bit apprehensive of his dragon-like eyes, but cast that feeling aside quickly. This was her Natsu, after all. He'd never do anything to her, no matter what.

Lucy pouted at him. "I wanted to be on top so I could do something! You're always the one doing all the work, and I want to be in control for once." She couldn't help sounding a little sullen.

Natsu laughed. "All right, you have a go, Starshine." He loosened his grip on her hips, and she hesitantly lowered herself back down, allowing him to fill her slowly. She gave a few more hesitant strokes, enjoying the feeling of him gliding slowly in and out of her heat. Natsu impatiently thrust his hips up, startling a moan out of her. Lucy decided that it was time to give in and speed up the pace. She began to ride him faster, gaining confidence as she went. She panted, "Is this ok?"

Her partner only nodded vigorously, staring at her bouncing chest. Suddenly, he lunged forward and caught her nipple with his teeth, biting sharply. The suddenness of this, combined with the building feeling coming from rubbing her clit along Natsu's length with each stroke, pushed Lucy suddenly into a violent orgasm. She nearly screamed as she came, hunching over her partner as her body shuddered. Finally, she drew back off of him, heaving, and nodded wearily.

Natsu didn't waste any time. He grabbed her hips again roughly, and began to push upwards into her quivering vagina with savage vigor. All she could do was hold onto his shoulders for dear life as he fucked her. Soon, she could feel his cock starting to twitch, and knew that he was about to come. As he started to pour his seed out into her, he slapped her firmly on her ass, causing her to shriek in surprise. She saw him smirk at her reaction out of the corner of her eye as he finished. He wrapped his arms around her middle, and flopped down sideways onto the couch, taking her with him. She flailed around wildly at the unexpected fall, and scolded him, "Natsu! That scared me!"

He nuzzled into her neck and replied, without a hint of remorse in his voice, "Mm. Sorry about that."

She couldn't help but laugh. "No, you're not," she replied. He shook his head slightly, not removing himself from his spot on her neck. She sighed. "Come on, Natsu, we should go to bed. It's actually bed time for real now."

He sighed. "Fine, let's go to bed then. Somehow I'm actually still tired."

Lucy laughed. "It's probably because you ate so much at dinner. Your body has to rest to digest it all now." She pushed herself off the couch, and worked her way over to the bed, turning off the room light as she went. She settled down onto her plush bed with a content sigh. A few seconds later, she felt her dragon slayer settle down next to her, pulling the covers over both of their bodies. She twisted around so that she was facing him, and gave him a kiss on his nose. "Good night," she whispered fondly.

He cracked an eye open, and whispered back, "Good night, love."

Lucy had just enough time to note that his eye was still golden before falling asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

Natsu cracked his eyes open in the morning and was greeted with the sight of Lucy's wall. He squinted at it in confusion, and sat up. Where was Lucy?

A quick glance around the apartment found her seated at her desk, poring over a book. His eyes fondly traced the line of her bowed back. It was just like her to be reading first thing in the morning. He got out of bed, and padded over to where she was seated. He bent and wrapped his arms around her neck, making her jumped. "Oh! Natsu, don't sneak up on me like that! You scared me!"

He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. Flowers, with that touch of vanilla. "I didn't sneak up on you," he replied.

"Well, you're too quiet when you walk!" she retorted.

He craned his head to look over her shoulder. "What are you reading so early in the morning, anyway?"

She chuckled. "Natsu, it's not exactly early. It's almost 11."

He was too busy tracing a fingertip over her collarbone to care. "Is it really?" he asked disinterestedly.

"Yeah, it is, and about time for you to start the day. How you've slept so much in the past couple days is beyond me. Go get cleaned up, and we should head out to the guild."

He groaned. "Aww, why?"

Lucy sighed wearily. "Because we have to work for a living. And besides, I know that Levy and Erza will be dying to get their hands on me and ask all the questions they can think of about us."

"And you really want to go deal with that instead of staying in bed with me all day?" he asked with a low heat.

He felt her shiver a bit at his suggestive words, but she replied firmly, "Yes, now scoot!" She took his arm off her shoulder and shoved him in the direction of the bathroom. He slumped in defeat, but couldn't resist giving her mating mark a quick kiss before obeying.

When he came back out, clean and even fully clothed (which he felt was a huge sacrifice at the moment), he announced glumly, "All right, Princess, let's get going."

She looked up from her reading, and he noticed dark circles under her eyes as she said cheerfully, "Ok, let me grab my keys and we'll go." As she busied herself getting ready, he frowned to himself. Why did she look like that? Had she not slept? He'd have to keep an eye on her today, he decided as he followed her out the door and on the way to the guild.

He was so lost in his worries that he didn't notice a pair of harrowed brown eyes watching them from the shadows.

Some time later, he sat at a table in the guild with his head in his hand, wishing they had never left. The second they had set foot in the guild, Lucy's prediction had proven to be true, and she'd been whisked away by her female friends. Erza in particular had an excited glint in her eye as the girls all squealed over Lucy's ring and pelted her with questions. He kept an eye on his Princess, but she seemed to be doing ok, flushing a beautiful rouge and glowing as she talked. The power of his gaze drew her attention to him, and their eyes met over the crowded room. He quickly smiled, not wanting her to see the concern on his face. She did see it, though, and flashed him a questioning look. He shook his head slightly, and gave her his signature grin, assuring her that nothing was wrong. She smiled back, but he saw the doubt in her eyes as she turned back to her eager friends.

Natsu heard a deep grunt next to him. "What, are you and Bunny Girl having conversations with your eyes already now?"

He turned to look wearily at Gajeel seated next to him. "Yeah, I guess so. We kinda already did, though. Just nobody paid as much attention to us before." I wish they still weren't, he added silently to himself. He was ready for all this fuss to be over.

The iron slayer took a long drink from his mug. "Well, you guys weren't as interesting before you hooked up."

Natsu bristled a bit at the implication. "We're not hooking up. I'd think that you would understand it the best out of anybody here."

Gajeel gave him a sidelong glance. "What, are you saying you want her to be your mate?"

He couldn't help but puff up a bit. "Not want her to, she already is."

A pause. "Yeah? How'd you manage that?"

"Didn't Metalicana tell you about mating rituals, either?" He felt a bit better, knowing that Igneel hadn't looked down on him, if Gajeel's dragon father hadn't thought it was something to tell his son, either.

Another long drink. "Not much. I was just a squirt, ya know. He just said that I had to make sure the girl I love was the real deal, and that I couldn't force nothin' on her, or something bad would happen to me."

"You're lucky, I didn't even get that much from Igneel."

Gajeel snorted. "Of course not, you're an idiot. It's not like you would've understood anyway."

Natsu fumed, "Hey, you jerk, you don't need to pull that shit. Don't act like you know so much more than I do."

Happy chimed in from his other side, "Yeah, Natsu can't help being stupid."

Natsu stood up abruptly. "Not helping, Happy. I'm going to go find a job."

The Exceed shouted after him,"Aye, sir!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lucy get up and follow after him. She caught up to him at the job board. "Is something wrong, Natsu?" she asked with obvious concern in her voice.

He tipped his head to look down at her. "Yeah, I already told you, I'm fine. I'm just picking out a new job, since my mate says we have to work for a living."

Her eyes didn't lose their worry. "Are you sure? You're not feeling weird at all?"

He turned his gaze back to the board, scanning the job openings. "Why would I be?"

"No reason, I guess."

Natsu settled on a job and pulled it off the board, waving it in the direction of the bar. "Mira, we're taking this one!" he yelled.

She smiled at them, and called in an overly sugared tone, "Have fun, you two!"

He sighed. He was done with all the attention they were getting. He'd be happy when all his guildmates got over this and left them alone. He turned to Lucy and said, "Should we go, then?"

She turned her face up to him. "Sure!"

This close to her, he could definitely see exhaustion etched into every line of her face. He turned his body so he was facing her fully, and put his hands on her cheeks. "Lucy, what's going on? Why are you so tired?"

She beamed at him. "What are you talking about? I'm fine."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Bullshit. Come on, spill it. What's up?"

Her eyes started to give, and she opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a loud cat-call. Someone shouted out, "Get a room, you two!"

Lucy's face darkened, and she dropped her face quickly, saying, "Maybe we shouldn't talk here. Come on, let's just get going." Before he could protest, she grabbed the job request out of his hand, and headed out the door. Frowning slightly, he followed after her. Yeah, he was definitely going to have to keep an eye on her today.

The mission he had chosen was a fairly simple one. They were helping out at a grand opening for a new restaurant in Magnolia. It was nothing that they hadn't done before. Lucy was promptly placed in a skimpy waitress outfit, complete with a frilly apron and pigtails. Natsu was put to work clearing tables and doing the occasional bit of magic to entertain the customers, although he suspected the order to perform magic was just so that the guild didn't get insulted by the blatant cry for short-term help

Natsu was pretty satisfied with this arrangement, as it freed him up to spend most of his time watching his mate. He told himself that he was just worried about her, but he couldn't deny that he was drinking in the sight of her bouncing around in that short skirt, teasing him with every wag of her hips. And he would have sworn that she was swaying her hips on purpose, a suspicion that he confirmed when he finally caught her eye and saw the mischievous gleam in them.

After seeing that, it was all he could do to focus on the task at hand for the rest of their shift. They were the longest two hours of his life, he was absolutely sure. Finally, the crowd thinned out, the last of the tables was cleared off, and Lucy accepted their payment, all smiles for the friendly restaurant owner. Natsu could barely keep his hands off of her as he followed her out the door in a daze of arousal. She must have sensed his mood, because she walked straight ahead towards her apartment, not even looking back over her shoulder or waiting for him. He grinned in the darkness, vaguely feeling the sensation of his fangs biting into his lower lip. He had just one thought in his mind as he walked in her wake: she was going to pay for that teasing.


	23. Chapter 23

Lucy hadn't looked back once since leaving the restaurant. She didn't have to. She knew exactly what would greet her if she did. Her partner, leering at her in the darkness, ready to pounce on her the second they got into the shadows. His presence behind her felt like a warm shadow, covering her with a feeling of safety and anticipation at the same time. A thought struck her, and her brow furrowed. Were his eyes that golden dragon shade again?

The more she wondered, the more it worried her. It seemed that he was entering a dragon-like state more frequently when he was aroused. The golden eyes, the elongated canines, the general predatory air. The first couple times she hadn't thought about it too much, caught up in the moment. But last night she had awoken in a cold sweat, remembering the lingering gold in her partner's eyes, even as he was ready to go to sleep. Did this have to do with the mating ritual? Had they done something wrong? Was the ritual not complete, as her research had concluded it was? If that was the case, were the golden eyes a sign that the much-warned against punishment would soon take place? These thoughts had kept her up in the middle of the night, and driven her to her desk for research long before the sun had started to dust the sky with pale green.

Not that it had done her much good. She had just found the same warnings, the same descriptions of the rituals, the same mention of the marks. All that was left, in her estimation, was the ceremony. But neither of her books described it in any helpful way. By the time Natsu had woken up, she had determined that she would need new materials if she was going to make any headway into this problem.

Now, as they walked back to her apartment, Lucy's thoughts turned back to the problem she'd been picking at all day: Where the hell was she going to find yet another book to describe the mating habits of dragons? By the time they reached her door, she wasn't any closer to the answer than she had been that morning.

Lucy soon forgot about her musings, however. As she unlocked the door, Natsu came up behind her, pressing his body solidly into hers and kissing the back of her neck until she managed to get the lock open and they cascaded inside in a tangle of limbs and lips. Lucy fumbled along the wall until her hand found the light switch, kicking off her shoes and tossing her things aside as she flipped it on. Natsu was equally busy discarding his own shoes, and his shirt while he was at it. Not that she was complaining. She ran her hands up the hard muscles of his front, enjoying the defined dips and curves of each one in passing. Natsu growled at her, and snatched her hands up in one of his. He placed his other hand just below her neck, and pushed her gently backwards until she was standing in front of her bed. Not letting go of her hands, Natsu reached up and removed his scarf from his neck, and then wound it around her slender wrists. Reaching up above her head, he looped one end of the scarf over a hook in the ceiling where Lucy vaguely remembered a lamp being hung at one time. He tied the ends of the scarf together securely, then gave it an experimental tug. When the knot held, he gave that wolfish grin that she was starting to know all too well.

The smile woke her up to what was happening. "Natsu, what the hell!" she spluttered. "What do you think you're doing?"

That same grin. "Isn't it obvious? The dragon is capturing the princess."

Her heart fluttered in her throat. Despite her annoyance at her position, she couldn't help being intrigued by his words and what he had in mind for her. She decided to play along, and even managed to convince her hurt pride that the decision had nothing to do with her inability to release herself.

While she was busy with these thoughts, Natsu had reached behind her and undone her frilly apron, drawing the top strap over her head before discarding in onto the floor behind him. Once it was off, his eyes met hers again fully, and with a jolt, Lucy noticed that they had already turned the gleaming gold of his dragon arousal. She was so preoccupied with their color that she failed to notice the devilish glint in them until it was too late. With a small fwoosh sound, the hem of her dress suddenly went up in flames around her.

Lucy shrieked. "Natsu, what the hell?"

He silenced her with a harsh kiss, delving his tongue deep into her throat. When he left her mouth, leaving her gasping for breath, she noticed that she was not actually on fire. Her relief was soon replaced by outrage, however, as she noticed that the dress had been completely incinerated in the flames. "Natsuuu!" she scolded. "Why did you do that?"

He reached up and grabbed her breasts tightly, drawing a squeak out of her. "That's what dragons do, ain't it?"

Before she could think of an answer, he grabbed her thigh-high tights and ripped them roughly off of her legs. As she gaped at him, he wasted no time in setting her panties on fire, as he had done to her poor dress.

This gave her the fuel she needed to yell again. "NATSU! WHAT THE HELL?"

He straightened up and clapped a hand over her mouth. Leaning in closely to her face, he whispered in a harsh tone, "You're being punished for earlier. Did you really think you could get away with swinging your tight little ass at me all day? Now you just be a good little princess and stay quiet, and maybe the dragon will let you go."

A thrill ran through her body. She nodded.

Natsu gave a soft, yet dangerous smile and lowered his hand. "Now spread your legs."

Trembling, she obeyed as he knelt down in front of her. "Good girl," he purred, and slung one of her knees over his shoulder. Looking at her over the swell of her breasts, he locked his gaze with hers as he reached up a hand and slid one finger leisurely into her soft folds. Lucy felt her internal muscles contract around him as he slid in and out of her at a torturous pace, his callouses scraping along her walls with titillating slowness until she was panting heavily. Natsu withdrew his finger, and Lucy opened her eyes and looked down to see the reason. His head was in between her legs, and as she watched in fascination, he snaked his tongue out and flicked her clit with the tip. She made a strangled noise, and his eyes darted up to hers for a moment. Not breaking eye contact, he flattened his tongue against her labia, and dragged it upwards torturously, making her squirm. He kept licking at her opening, lapping up her abundant arousal until he had consumed everything that had seeped out of her..

He finally stopped his torment, withdrawing his head from her throbbing sex. He didn't give her any reprieve, however, moving his mouth directly to her hip and biting sharply. Lucy whimpered. She felt him smile against her skin, his fangs nipping her sharply. But before she could worry about it, Natsu had returned his attentions to her body, completely clearing her mind of anything but his hot mouth working its way over her flesh, from her waist to her sides, lingering pleasurably on her breasts for quite a while, before making his way up to her ear.

As he stood in front of her and nipped at her ear, he took hold of her legs and wrapped them around his heavily muscled torso. Lucy barely had time to register the new position she was in before Natsu jerked his cock roughly inside of her. As her mind was reeling from the incredible fullness of having him inside, he began to push raggedly in and out of her, with more force than rhythm. Lucy found that she actually liked this very much, feeling his passion with each stroke. Her head lolled back and bobbed slightly in time with her mate's thrusts. As she was starting to feel her climax coming, her legs were lifted up without warning until her calves rested on Natsu's shoulders.

"Ohhhh," she moaned, "Dee-heeep. Nah...Natsuuu, I'm gonna–"

As her orgasm took her in harsh waves, she lifted her head to look at Natsu. He was coming with her, but that wasn't what drew her attention. As she had known they would be, his eyes were gold, and his teeth were elongated, but what she hadn't expected to see was a dusting of scales across his face. As he shuddered and grunted, spending himself within her, she had a hard time focusing on the completion of their lovemaking, feeling her fears for his well-being starting to engulf her again.

Natsu didn't seem to notice anything wrong, leaning in to kiss her deeply after letting her legs down. Setting her feet back on the floor reminded her of her other problem. "Um, Natsu? Can you untie me now?" She was certain her face was flaming red as she asked this.

He kissed her forehead. "Sure, Princess. Are you that eager to get away from the dragon?" he joked as he reached up to untie his scarf from her wrists. She opened her mouth to reply at the same instant that the restraining scarf was removed. The loss of this support caused her knees to buckle, so she let out a small screech instead of the retort she had planned. Luckily, Natsu was there, and caught her readily before she fell to the ground. Just like he's always there to catch me, her mind supplied, unbidden.

Natsu hauled her over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and plopped her unceremoniously on the bed before settling down next to her. He pecked her on the nose before nestling down on the cover, saying, "Good night, Princess." And with that, he seemed to fall immediately into a deep sleep.

Lucy, however, did not fall asleep nearly as easily. She laid awake for what felt like hours, tossing and turning as she ran over all the info she knew about dragon mating in her head several times before concluding that she was, indeed, going to have to find a new source of information. But how?

Finally, in the middle of one of her turns, the answer came to her. Of course! The old man they had retrieved that book for! He'd said he was a researcher, and he'd had that old book that included dragon mating. It stood to reason that he could easily have other books on the same subject available, since research usually required several sources on the same subject. She nodded up at her ceiling in the dark, resolved in her path. She'd go see him in the morning, and no matter what it took, she would get her hands on the information they needed.

Having settled that in her mind, Lucy immediately felt her delayed exhaustion setting in. Tucking her head into Natsu's shoulder, she sighed contentedly, and allowed herself to finally get some sleep.


	24. Chapter 24

The next morning, Natsu woke up earlier than he would have on his own. He turned over on his side, reaching his arm out to cover his mate. But the only thing that met his touch was cold sheets. Frowning, he sat up and opened his eyes.

Lucy was nowhere to be seen.

Furthermore, her fading scent told him that she had left the apartment a little while ago.

His frown deepening, Natsu got up and headed into the bathroom. As he relieved himself, he mused over the situation. He supposed it probably wasn't too weird that she wasn't there at the moment, but why hadn't Lucy told him that she was leaving, or even where she was going? As he finished up and headed back out to the main room to grab his clothes, his discomfort was starting to grow. He decided that he didn't like this situation at all. Throwing his clothes on quickly, he shuffled into his shoes and took off onto the streets of Magnolia, barely remembering to close the door behind him.

As he exited the apartment, he took a deep breath in an attempt to locate his mate's smell. He found it almost immediately, although it was starting to fade. As he was figuring out which direction to go, his nose identified another scent. One that he remembered all too well. And to his horror, it was headed in the same direction as Lucy's. The realization made his limbs feel cold, as if his blood had turned to ice. Before his thoughts had caught up to his senses, he was sprinting as fast as he could after the scent trails.

Although he easily overtook all the other pedestrians on the streets, it seemed to Natsu as if he was moving through a sea of molasses. The minutes it took him to run across Magnolia were excruciating. He wished fervently more than once that Happy was there to give him a faster ride.

Finally, as he reached the outskirts of town, the smell of his mate and her pursuer became stronger, and he knew that he was closing in on them. As if to confirm his thoughts, he heard the sounds of a struggle a few hundred yards ahead. Natsu redoubled his efforts, running faster than he ever had before, yelling out as he went, "I'm comin' Luce! Just hold on!"

As he burst through a patch of trees onto the path, he surrounded his fist with flames, readying it to sink into the face of the moss-headed bastard who had dared to come near his mate again. He scanned the scene quickly, checking first on his princess. He was relieved to see her on her feet without a hint of fear on her face. He then turned his attention to assessing the rest of the situation. Renard was sitting on the ground, bound up in chains that Virgo was fitting a lock onto. She bowed to Lucy as Natsu dashed over to his partner's side. "If that's all, Princess, I'll be on my way."

Lucy nodded. "Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you, Virgo."

As the gate closed, Natsu grabbed Lucy's shoulders tightly. "Lucy, are you ok?" he demanded, scanning her quickly for any signs of injury.

Lucy crossed her arms over her ample chest and huffed at him. "Yeah, Natsu, I'm fine. And I'm a bit annoyed that you thought I couldn't take him on my own. The only reason he got the better of me last time was because I didn't have my keys or my whip with me. I'm perfectly capable of defending myself against creeps like him."

Having finished his preliminary examination, Natsu decided that she actually was not hurt. That having been settled, he turned to the bound man on the ground, his eyes flashing his rage. "Well, you bastard," he snarled. "Just what the FUCK did you think you were doing?"

Renard sneered up at his captors. "What do you think? I was going to teach that bitch a lesson for how she treated me, and then I was coming for you. Nobody humiliates me like that and gets away with it!"

The ice that Natsu had felt in his veins earlier turned to a cold rage, and he stalked over to the other man. He lowered his face down and grabbed the collar of Renard's shirt, hauling him bodily off the ground. "Now listen here, you bastard! Whatever thoughts you have about Lucy, get them out of your filthy head NOW! She's my woman, and I won't let you get anywhere near her again. You just try it, and I'll kick your ass so hard you'll piss yourself whenever you think about me. Ya got me?"

Being so close to Natsu's intense glare seemed to stifle the other man's willingness to fight. Renard stared back at Natsu for a second before flicking his eyes away and nodding sullenly. This wasn't nearly enough satisfaction for Natsu, however. This bastard had tried to hurt his Lucy. He shook Renard, barking at him, "Hey, jackass! I asked you a question!"

Renard grumbled at the ground, "Fine! Yeah, I get it. But if she's really yours, why did she go on a date with me in the first place? Seems like you don't take care of her as well as you think you do."

The world became strangely still for a second. Natsu could feel each particle in the air around him heating up as fire collected on his fist. Distantly, he heard Lucy call his name, a question in her voice. He was far beyond being stopped by such a mild response, though. His hand flashed through the air as he roared, "FIRE DRAGON'S IRON FIST!" At the shout, Renard turned his face back towards Natsu, and had just enough time to give a look of horrified anticipation before Natsu's blow connected. Renard went flying, slamming against a tree behind him with a solid clunk. His head drooped forward as he slumped down to the ground.

"NATSU!" Lucy scolded, and ran forward to check on his foe. She touched the side of his neck with two fingers, and after a moment stood up and turned to him, her ire written on her face. "Just what the hell were you thinking, idiot? You could have killed him!"

Natsu barely noticed what she was saying to him .He was staring at his fist in horror. He registered her voice, and raised his head groggily. "Huh? What did you say, Luce?"

She stamped her foot and burst out, "Idiot! I already had him all tied up. Why did you hit him that hard? He could have died!"

Natsu's gaze fell back to his fist. "No, it couldn't have," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" his mate snapped.

With an effort, Natsu shook himself out of his daze. "Nothing, Starshine. I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure the creep leaves you alone for good this time."

Lucy seethed, "Punching him won't guarantee that! He knows where I live, he could easily come back again."

Natsu closed the distance between them with two long strides. He gathered her up in his arms, squeezing her tight to his chest.

She tried to angle her head up at him. "Natsu?" she asked with the same inquisitive tone she'd used earlier.

He borrowed his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. "You're right," he answered, voice muffled by her thick blonde locks. "He does know where you live. And that's why you should come live with me."

She succeeded in pulling back this time, looking him full in the face. "Natsu, I thought we talked about that."

He returned her gaze levelly. "I know, but you admitted that you didn't have any reason to say no, and it seems like this situation calls for it. As soon as possible."

Lucy sighed in defeat. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I would be safer at your house, and you should be getting back to Happy anyways. I'm sure he misses you."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Natsu couldn't keep a huge smile off his face. "Yeah, you've got a good point. I'll start moving your stuff in today, then!"

She shook her head at him fondly. "You're impossible."

He wrapped her up in another tight hug, kissing her thoroughly. When he released her, he rested his forehead against hers and whispered, "I know." Straightening back up, he cleared his throat to get rid of the bundle of raw emotion that was stuck there. He tried to summon up a disapproving look, and confronted her. "Why did you leave the apartment so early in the morning, anyway? You didn't wake me up, or even bother to tell me where you went!"

Lucy blinked up at him, and Natsu silently marveled at her long, feminine eyelashes. "What are you talking about? I left you a note on the fridge to let you know I'd be out for a little while."

He deflated a bit. "Oh. I didn't go in the kitchen, so I didn't see it."

She drew back a bit in shock. "Seriously? You thought about something other than food first thing in the morning? Are you sure you're really my mate?"

He directed a stern look at her. "Haha, very funny. I didn't think about food because I was worried about you. So where were you going?"

Lucy hurriedly looked away from him. "Oh, it's nothing. I was just going to look for a book, that's all."

"All the way out here? We're not anywhere near a bookshop."

She still refused to meet his gaze. "I know. I wasn't going to a book store. I was going to see Maven Tyndall."

Now he was sure that something was up. "Why? Is there a particular book you need?"

All of a sudden, Lucy seemed to think that the grass under her feet was the most interesting view in the world. Gazing down at it, she muttered a reply that even his dragon hearing barely caught. "I need another book on dragon mating."

He paused a second before prodding gently, "Why do you need another one? I thought we had taken care of everything."

Lucy mumbled, "I don't think we have." Her voice gaining strength gradually, she continued. "When we...have sex, your eyes get golden, like they do when you're in dragon mode. And...your fangs get really long. And last night, you even got scales on your skin." She finally looked up and met his eyes, and he was startled to find moisture sparkling in them, threatening to spill over. "I'm worried about you, Natsu, and I'm hoping that I can find the information I need at Mr. Tyndall's house."

Natsu kissed the top of her head and said reassuringly, "Ok, Luce. I get it. I still don't think anything's wrong, but I'll go with you. I can't let my girl go wandering around when there are creeps trying to follow her around." He kicked at Renard's limp form as he said this.

Lucy's eyes widened. "Oh, that's right! What are we going to do with him?"

He really d8idn't care. But to appease his celestial mage, he countered, "We'll go do what you need to do, and we'll pick him up on the way back. Or we'll just head right back to town and send the police out after him."

Although she looked like the plan didn't sit well with her, Lucy nodded her agreement, perhaps seeing the steel in her partner's gaze. All she said was, "Should we go, then?"

With one last scornful look at Renard, Natsu turned to his mate. "You lead the way, Princess."

She smiled. "I'd rather that you walk next to me. We work better when we do things together."

Natsu's throat tightened a bit at her words. To buy himself a moment, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. "Sounds good to me," he finally managed to rasp out


	25. Chapter 25

Lucy felt contentment settle into her chest as Natsu walked along at her side, matching her pace automatically. She hadn't wanted to admit it to him, but she had been very worried about going the rest of the way alone. Getting jumped out in the middle of nowhere was a very jarring experience. She hadn't even heard Renard until he'd grabbed her from behind. Luckily, she'd still been able to reach her keys, and call upon Virgo, who took care of the situation quickly. Somehow, getting attacked by a relatively weak guy who probably wanted to rape her was a lot scarier than fighting a wizard who was stronger than her. She laced her fingers through Natsu's, and thanked her lucky stars that he had come along. While she hadn't needed backup, she definitely needed the emotional support now.

With her fears echoing and gradually dying down in her mind, the walk to Mr. Tyndall's house seemed to take almost no time. She only became aware of their location when Natsu tugged on her hand, halting her shortly before she tripped over the steps leading up to the front door. She gave him a small smile of gratitude, then ascended the stairs to knock on the door.

She heard stirring inside the house, followed by shuffling footsteps to the door, which was then cracked open. When he saw Lucy, Maven opened the door fully, exclaiming, "Why, if it isn't the young Fairy Tail wizards! What brings you all the way out here again?"

Lucy replied, "Well, Mr. Tyndall, I'm actually looking for another book, similar to the one that I got from you. I was hoping that since you're a researcher, you'd have more books on the same topic."

"You'll have to remind me which book you chose, little lady. I'm afraid I was too engrossed in the book you retrieved to notice which one you selected."

"It was 'Magical Creatures and Their Mating Habits.'"

Maven hummed to himself. "It depends. Is there a particular creature from the book that you were wanting to know about?"

"Dragons," Lucy responded, feeling a bit nervous to hear the reply.

"Dragons? No, I'm afraid not. Dragons are a very hard subject to research. Very little that was ever written about them has survived, at least as far as primary sources go."

Lucy's heart sank as he continued.

"I'm very sorry about that. I have several books on the other creatures described in that volume, but nothing further on dragons."

Lucy managed to rally herself enough to thank Maven for his time. "That's all right, Mr. Tyndall. I wasn't really expecting that you would have anything, just hoping. I do know how hard it is to get sources about dragons. I've been trying to research them for years, with very little success." She bowed to him. "Thank you for your time."

"Not at all. I'm just sorry I couldn't help you."

"Not to worry. Have a nice day." Lucy turned around and walked back to Natsu, not quite able to meet his gaze as she cheerfully said, "Well, let's go home, then. We should talk to my land lady." She started to stride off back towards Magnolia, and got about 50 feet before her partner caught up to her and grabbed her wrist.

"Hey there, love. Slow down a bit." She stopped walking, and he maneuvered himself in front of her until they were facing each other. "I know you're worried about all this, but I don't really think there's anything to worry about. All that stuff that happens when we have sex is probably just because I'm more of a full-fledged dragon now, since I have a mate and all. I don't really think there's anything to worry about."

She hadn't thought of that possibility before. She raised her gaze to meet his. "I guess that's a possibility. Are you sure that you're not having any other symptoms? No weird pains, or anything like that?"

She thought she saw his eyes flicker a bit, but he looked at her so staunchly as he replied that she was sure it had just been her imagination. "Of course not. I'm a dragon slayer, what could hurt me?" He slapped his chest, as if to prove his heartiness. His gaze on her softened as he cupped her cheek with his hand and murmured, "Does that make you feel any better?"

Lucy kissed him gently, and whispered back, "Yes. Thank you, Natsu."

He gave her his signature toothy grin. "Great! Should we go start moving you into my house, then?"

She couldn't help giggling at him. He was so impatient! "Yes, Natsu. Let's go." They joined hands again and walked back into town, enjoying their togetherness in contented silence.


	26. Chapter 26

The next week went by in a flurry of back-and-forth trips between Lucy's apartment and Natsu's house. Natsu did so much transportation and heavy lifting for his less muscular mate that he was starting to feel more like a pack horse than a dragon. According to her, though, he was still retaining several dragon-like features during their frequent lovemaking. Between those "breaks," the move, and the incessant gushing of their guild mates, the week flew by before Natsu felt like he could get a handle on everything that was happening.

He didn't dare say anything to his mate, but over the course of the week he noticed a steady decline in the level of his strength. It was slight enough that he was fairly certain nobody else had noticed, but each trip to and from their house took more of a toll on him. Finally, towards the end of the week, they were taking a break in the guild hall when Lucy asked, "Natsu, are you feeling ok?"

His eyes darted over at her in surprise, then he quickly looked away and tried to arrange his face into a more neutral expression. He fixed his gaze on his glass as he replied, "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"I don't know. You just seem like you're not operating at full Natsu power lately."

Natsu stifled a sigh. They'd finally managed to get all their guild mates to leave them alone, and now she was asking him about the very thing he'd been noticing–and trying to hide from her–for the past week. He just wanted the two of them to be able to relax and enjoy each other. A sudden idea popped into his head. He lifted his eyes to hers as seductively as he could, and replied in a low tone, "I'm just fine, Princess. Should I prove it to you?"

She swallowed visibly, and Natsu smirked. Seemed like his idea was working. He continued, "Nobody's watching us right now, and Happy's at home napping after all the moving excitement. Why don't we sneak away into one of the back rooms for a bit?" As he spoke, he brushed his hand slowly up and down the length of her thigh under the table. He could smell her arousal and see the pulse point at her throat quicken. She still seemed determined to pursue her questioning, however.

"I'm serious, Natsu. I've been noticing that you're getting tired earlier than you normally would. And you've been taking smaller and smaller loads with moving things. I've caught you sitting down to rest a couple times when you thought I couldn't see you."

Despite himself, he was simultaneously moved, impressed, and annoyed with Lucy's observational skills. He hadn't thought that anyone would be able notice his gradual waning of strength. He felt a warm touch at his heart knowing that she cared enough to be watching him, but he really didn't want her to worry. His resolve strengthened. He slid his hand further up her leg, letting the tip of his finger graze over the crotch of her shorts as he leaned closer towards her. "I've been moving things around all week mostly by myself." Gray helping him move the heaviest furniture pieces didn't count in his mind. "Of course I'm worn out a bit." He dipped his head down so his lips brushed against the shell of her ear as he added in a hoarse whisper, "And all the exercise you've been giving me is making me tired, too." He was gratified to hear her breath hitch, and he continued, "I'm feeling all rested up right now, though. Do you want to take me for a ride and make sure that I'm not getting too weak?"

He could practically feel her waver as she weighed her choices. After a few seconds laden with anticipation, she murmured, "I suppose that's an acceptable way to test your strength." She stood abruptly, and made her way to the door at the back of the guild hall. She pushed it open and disappeared into the corridor of vacant rooms beyond.

Natsu kept his seat at the table for a few minutes, sipping his drink idly as he desperately tried to calm the raging hard-on he had. As soon as he felt it go down enough, he stood and hurried after his mate, thankful for the loose pants that he favored. Ignoring the knowing glances from a few of their guildmates, he pushed through the door and followed Lucy's addictive scent into one of the bedrooms.

As he opened the door to the bedroom, his mouth dropped open in astonishment. Spread out on the bed in naked radiance lay his gorgeous mate. Her legs were open wide and her arousal dripped down onto her plump ass cheeks as she slid two slender fingers in and out of her opening, moaning his name under her breath.

Natsu gaped at the erotic sight and gulped audibly. All his effort to calm his erection was wasted as it instantly stiffened.

Lucy jerked her head up, eyes wide as they met his. The blush on her cheeks was irresistible as she looked at him, horrified to have been caught in the act.

He smiled, feeling his teeth already elongated into sharp fangs. This was going to be more fun than he had thought.

He kicked the door shut behind him, and dropped his vest and scarf to the floor as he slowly sauntered over to the bed. "What do you think you're doing, Luce?" he asked in a husky voice.

Her face flared crimson as she tried to stutter a reply. "W-well, I was waiting for you, a-and, I, um, didn't know when you were coming, and so I just..." she trailed off, and stared resolutely at the wall.

Natsu undid his pants quickly and dropped them to the floor by the bed. He leaned over his mate, placing his hands on either side of her head. She reluctantly looked up. He said in a low voice, "I didn't say you should stop."

He relished the look on his partner's face as she processed what he had said, and then shook her head vigorously. "No! No way, that's too embarrassing!"

He leaned in closer and purred, "Then why were you doing it? You knew I was coming."

"Well...you were taking so long to get here, and...I thought I'd hear you coming down the hall..."

"So you're trying to tell me you didn't want me to see this?"

"No, I didn't!"

Natsu reached out a hand and delicately traced her lower lip with one finger. "Well, that's just too bad, Princess. Your dragon wants you to keep touching yourself. You don't want the dragon to eat you, now do you?"

She gulped, and Natsu watched her throat bob up and down with keen interest. She nodded. "O...ok."

He pushed back and settled down on the bed near her feet so he could have a good view of everything that happened. With trembling fingers, Lucy lowered her hand down to her sex and slid her digits back into her slick opening. She started slowly, barely making any noise, hesitantly sinking her fingers in and out.

This wouldn't do at all. "Grab your nipple," Natsu commanded.

"B-but Natsu!"

"Do it." He guessed that his face was taking on the dragon-like features his mate had described, since she didn't offer any more resistence to his demands. Hesitantly, she raised her free hand up and locked her fingers around her erect nipple.

Natsu felt his cock twitch at the sight. "Good girl. Now pull."

She obeyed, a little more readily than before. A small whine escaped her slightly parted lips.

"Keep going, that's perfect," he coaxed.

Within a few minutes, Lucy was lost in her pleasure, readily pulling at her breasts as she continued to pump her fingers inside herself. Natsu watched approvingly as she tilted her head back onto the pillows, her earlier embarrassment forgotten. He grinned widely. The sight of his mate, spread out wantonly and already writhing in pleasure, made him eager for a taste of her. He dipped his head down to her sex, and flicked his tongue out over her clit. She gasped loudly and flung her head up so she could look down at him. Satisfied that he had her attention, he placed a light kiss on her parted lower lips, and growled, "Don't stop." Without waiting for her to acknowledge him, he took her clit between his lips and suckled on it roughly. Lucy jolted violently up into his mouth, her body completely leaving the bed apart from her heels and shoulders. When she came back down to rest on the mattress again, Natsu released her from his mouth to bark, "I said don't stop!"

Lucy let out a shuddering moan, and resumed her self-pleasure with halting fingers, as Natsu continued to use his tongue and mouth to stroke her higher. He flicked his gaze up at her and caught sight of her heavy breasts, heaving violently. Finding them irresistible, he reached up a hand and roughly grabbed the soft mound that Lucy wasn't attending to, simultaneously tugging at her clit gently with his teeth.

This proved to be his mate's undoing. With a tremulous cry, she once again lifted herself bodily off the bed as an orgasm ripped through her supple body. Natsu watched in fascination as she was racked with violent tremors, one after another. By the time she finally flopped back down onto the bed, he wasted no time in spreading her legs farther apart and dipping his head down to lick at the ample fluid dripping down between her sprawled thighs. Lucy groaned tiredly and protested, "Naaatsu, what are you doooing?"

Without looking up at her, he removed his tongue from her sex long enough to answer, "The dragon decided to eat the princess after all."

His mate let out another groan, but one of a completely different variety. "Natsu, did you really just make a joke right nah-HAAAAH!" Her protests were cut off by his tongue deftly swirling inside of her tight walls.

If her responses to him were any indication, he seemed to have learned a lot about oral sex in the past week. He supposed that the amount of practice he'd had definitely helped. He also simply spent a lot of time paying attention to Lucy's responses. He was absolutely fascinated by seeing her naked, and though they had slept together dozens of times in the past week and a half, he felt like each time was a completely new experience, prompting him to start his exploration of her form all over again. With this close attention to the details of Lucy's body, it hadn't taken him very long to notice several pleasurable spots and triggers on her. He used one of those tricks now, running his hands up along her inner thighs, starting at her knees, stopping with his hands firmly grasping the joints of her hips from the inside, leisurely tracing his thumbs along her labia. Lucy grabbed his hair firmly and yanked, silently begging for him to give her more of what she wanted.

Natsu felt his cock pulse. He was more than ready to respond to his mate's wordless plea. Unable to tease her any longer, he slid his hands rapidly back up to her knees and roughly pushed her legs up, raising his body to a kneeling position at the same time. He pressed her legs down further, shoving them to the sides of her breasts to allow for further stretching, until her knees were nearly touching her shoulders. As he moved his erection to her wet opening, he took a moment to admire the allure of the gorgeous blonde beneath him. Whenever she was underneath him, he couldn't help but think that her cascade of hair looked like a halo, framing her angelic face.

He must have stared at her for longer than he thought, because he suddenly heard Lucy ask, "Natsu? Is something wrong?"

He met her worried look, and smiled a bit sheepishly. "No, nothing. I was just thinking about how beautiful you are. Maybe you're actually an angel instead of a princess."

Her eyes sparkled at his words, belying her tone as she replied, "Stop being silly, you idiot! Please...please just put it in me already."

Natsu drew a corner of his mouth up in a smirk. How could he refuse such a sweet request?

With a quick jerk of his hips, Natsu seated himself deep within his mate, and gave an inadvertent gasp. Without even pushing, he was at the mouth of her womb. The incredible depth of the position overwhelmed him for a second until he could get a hold of his raging hormones. He gathered his thoughts together, and began to thrust experimentally into her. He quickly decided that this position was one of his favorites. Each forceful stroke sheathed his length fully, and explored a depth of his mate that he had hardly encountered before.

It seemed like Lucy was enjoying this position just as much as he was. As soon as he had started moving inside of her, she'd begun a series of moans that he had never heard from her before. She didn't even seem to care how loud they were being inside the guild. At any other time, he would have teased her about her volume, but he was feeling too good to put energy into that right now.

As those thoughts were going vaguely through the back of his mind, Lucy broke from her moans to keen a high-pitched version of his name, clawing his shoulders as she clamped around him in an intense orgasm. The added pressure proved to be Natsu's undoing, and he only managed a few more erratic thrusts before he emptied himself inside of his mate.

As soon as his own orgasm was done, however, Natsu sensed that something was wrong. The room began to tilt around him haphazardly, and he couldn't seem to focus his vision. He barely managed to lift himself off of his mate before he collapsed on the bed.


	27. Chapter 27

As Lucy was coming down from the high of her intense orgasm, she felt the weight of her partner hit the bed next to her as he fell. Hard.

Something was wrong.

She bolted upright, despite her loose muscles screaming at the sudden action. She whipped her body around, and froze. Natsu was lying face-down on the bed, motionless in an unnatural position, his arms folded under him at an angle that screamed of the wrongness of the situation. But what scared her the most was the mating mark on his shoulder. Where before it had pulsed warmly, with a beat akin to the sweet beating of a heart, now it wavered, like the dying light of a candle cut off from oxygen. As if, at any second, it might stop altogether.

Lucy watched from far away as her hand extended, trembling, towards her unnaturally still mate. Distantly, she observed slender fingers unfurl laboriously, until the tips just skimmed the dim flicker of the mating mark.

As their bodies connected through the mark, it felt like a jolt of lightning ran through Lucy, throwing her violently back into the reality of the situation.

Natsu.

He wasn't moving.

She seized his shoulder with both hands and yanked as hard as she could, tipping his body just enough so that he landed on his back. Shaking him, Lucy called his name, battling to keep her panic down. "Natsu! Hey, Natsu, wake up! Are you ok?" She dipped her ear down next to his nose, trying to locate the steady breathing that she loved falling to sleep to. Instead, she heard a shallow, intermittent huffing. Her vision dimmed, and the panic she had been fighting broke free with frightening force.

She slapped his cheek, hard, and shrilled, "NATSU!"

There was no response.

She had to get help.

All rational thought stopped there. As she bolted off the bed and out of the room, the only cohesive idea in her mind was Natsu. She sprinted down the short corridor and barreled into the middle of the guild hall. Whipping her head around wildly, looking for someone that she couldn't remember at the moment, she screamed, "HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE! I NEED HELP!"

All activity halted as her guild mates stared at her in shock. An agonizingly long heartbeat later, Mirajane hurried out from behind the counter, snatching Gray's shirt off of a nearby stool as she rushed over to the panicked celestial mage. As she flung the shirt around Lucy, she demanded, "Lucy, what is it? What's wrong?"

Lucy choked on a sob as she wailed, "Natsu! It's Natsu! PLEASE, you have to do something!"

As the guild's blue-haired healer strode over to them, Lucy suddenly remembered the face she had been looking for. She clung onto Wendy's shoulders as she begged, "Please! You have to help him!"

Wendy nodded. "Of course! Where is he?"

Lucy jabbed a finger down the corridor, bawling uncontrollably now. Thankfully, the petite dragon slayer didn't stop to ask any more questions, but hurried off in the direction Lucy pointed.

As she left, Lucy vaguely felt warm hands steering her in the direction of the bar as Mira murmured, "Come on, now, let's get you over here and–"

Where? No! That way was wrong! Lucy tore herself out of the kind guidance of her friend. "NO! I have to go to Natsu!" She staggered away, going towards the only way that she possibly could, in the direction of her soul.

Somewhere on her way to the hall, she was intercepted in her stumbling run by Levy, who gripped the shirt tighter around her friend as she scurried along with her towards the room where Natsu was.

Lucy burst in through the bedroom door, Levy at her heels, and saw that Wendy was already at work. She was taking his pulse at his wrist, holding the other hand up to his nose to check for breath. The competent aura she gave off did little to pierce through the fog of terror surrounding Lucy. She barely even noticed Levy scurrying forward to discreetly drape the bed's blanket over Natsu's lap, just as several other concerned Fairy Tail members burst into the door behind them. As Wendy hovered her hands over the other dragon slayer's motionless form, Levy stopped the other wizards, flinging her tiny arms out wide in a protective gesture. "Out, everyone! Wendy's already in here, and you're all just crowing the room so she can't work! Wait outside, and we'll let you know if she needs anything!"

Gajeel immediately joined his voice in with hers, adding in his rough growl, "You all heard the shrimp, let's give them some space!" Levy shot him a grateful look, as nobody dared to argue with the fierce glare of the metal dragon slayer.

Lucy was completely unaware of this exchange going on behind her, however. Her focus had narrowed onto the entirety of her world that was unresponsive on the bed. After an agonizingly long minute, Wendy opened her eyes as her hands began to glow with her magic. Turning her head towards Lucy as she did, Wendy said, "I can't find anything wrong with him physically, but his magic feels...a bit off. I'm casting a general healing and replenishment spell now. We should know in a couple minutes if it's going to work or not."

Wordlessly, Lucy nodded. It couldn't be if. It had to work.

Each heartbeat felt like it ticked off a year of her life as she stood, rooted to the ground, eyes locked on Natsu's face.

An eternity of heartbeats passed, and suddenly, he hitched a sharp breath, and his eyes slitted open.

Lucy felt herself launched forward and heard a wail, landing on his chest before she even realized she had reacted. She heard him deflate underneath her, and frantically scrambled off of him. She looked down into his face, and she was sure that she had never in her life been happier to see a teasing twinkle in his eyes.

"Geez, Luce, what did you do that for? Give me some warning before you wake me up by jumping all over me." Then his nostrils flared, and the fond smirk disappeared as his eyes etched a frown. "Hey, what are you doing naked with Gray's shirt on?"

Suddenly, Lucy became aware of the state she was in. She looked down at herself and noticed that her mate's assessment was correct. And not only that, but Natsu was naked, too. And there were other people in the room. Other people who had to know what they had been doing in here.

Lucy shook her head, feeling heat rise on her face even as she scolded herself. There are more important things going on here than your embarrassment! Rallying her pride, Lucy gripped the shirt around her shoulders and turned to Wendy with what calm and dignity she had left to gather. "Wendy, does this mean he'll be ok? What was going on with him, anyway? He just fell over all of a sudden!"

Now that her immediate medical assistance had been given, Wendy looked as if she was also in danger of losing her composure in the face of her friends' nakedness. To her credit, she looked as if she were sincerely trying to ignore that fact and finish her obligations as a healer with composure. The shade of her face must have matched Lucy's own, however, as she replied, "I'm not really sure. He didn't really have anything wrong with him physically that I could pinpoint, at the most just some fatigue. But like I said, his magic just felt wrong, so I applied a general replenishment and healing spell. It looks like that worked for now, but I wouldn't advise that he exert himself too much over the next couple days, just in case something like this happens again. I'm sorry, but that's all I know. I'm not really trained to be a doctor, after all. Just a sky dragon slayer." Wendy looked uncomfortable as she glanced off to the side following her assessment.

Lucy quickly reassured her, "Oh, no! You were fantastic, Wendy, thank you so much for your help! I was so panicked, I'm just glad that you came to help us out." She gave the blue haired girl a relieved smile, earning one in return. "Why don't you guys head on back to the guild hall? Thank you so much for your help."

Levy and Wendy nodded in agreement, ducking out of the room as Natsu sat up in the bed and looked at Lucy quizzically. "Luce, what the hell's going on? What was all that about? And why the HELL are you wearing ice jerk's shirt? "

Lucy rounded on him with murder in her heart. "NATSU DRAGNEEL! YOU ARE THE MOST IDIOTIC MAN I HAVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE! How can you sit there teasing me and being jealous when I thought...when I thought..." The roiling emotions inside billowed out in a haze of tears that blurred her vision. She buried her head in her hands, continuing her tirade brokenly. "You...you just...f-fell over, and...and I couldn't wake you u-up, and...and you were barely breathing, s-so I ran to go...go get help, and...and I thought...I was so..." Nothing else seemed willing to come out of her mouth, except the harsh sobs that were racking her whole frame.

A soft pad of feet on the floor alerted her to her partner's presence before he enclosed her within the circle of his arms, drawing her head down to his shoulder and pressing his lips to her hair. "Shhhh, love. It's ok. You're fine. I'm doing just fine now, see? I'm as good as new, there's nothing to worry about. Don't cry now, nothing's happening to me. You heard Wendy, there's nothing wrong with me. I was probably just tired from doing all the moving this week. But I'm all good now, she cast that healing spell on me and I feel as good as new. See, there's nothing to worry about anymore."

Lucy pulled away from him, enough to communicate her disagreement with his words, but not enough for her to leave the reassurance of his strong arms. "Natsu, you are obviously not fine! You were barely breathing! And not only that, but your mating mark! It was...quivering, like the light in it was going to go out. What the hell was I supposed to do? Calmly watch as you...as you..." she couldn't even finish her thought in her mind, much less vocalize her deepest fear.

Natsu grasped her face with his hands, directing her gaze to his. "Hey. I know you were scared. But look at me now. You can see me and feel me. Do I look like there's anything wrong with me?" As he spoke, he swiped her tears away with his coarse thumbs.

Resentfully, she sniffled and shook her head. "No. You look fine now." She straightened up a bit. "Let me look at your mating mark, though."

He sighed. "Do you have to? You're too worried about the whole mating ritual thing, Luce."

She stubbornly stared at him until he sighed again and turned around for her to inspect his shoulder. She reached her fingers out to touch his mark gently. It did look a little better, she had to admit. More...normal. But there was still a definite waver to the light. But maybe that was normal for mating marks? After all, what did she really know about them? They hadn't even been mentioned in any of the sources she had managed to get her hands on. Maybe the consistency of the marks changed with mood or physical condition something?

Natsu turned his head back towards her over his shoulder. "Well? Are you satisfied, Princess?"

Reluctantly, Lucy conceded. "Yeah, I guess so. But we are going straight home right now, and you are going to bed!"

He turned his body back around towards her, hooking his hands around her waist with a sexy grin. "I'm ok with that," he replied in a sultry tone, leaning in to give her a kiss.

She drew back, holding her finger up to his lips. "But NOT for that," she scolded.

His face fell. "Awww, come on, Luuuucy," he cajoled.

But Lucy was adamant. "No. You are going to bed, and you are not to move out of it for the rest of today and all of tomorrow. No excuses, we finally got my bed over to the house, so I know you'll be plenty comfortable. And everything that's left at the apartment Happy and I can get by ourselves tomorrow, and then we can turn in the key. I'll leave you with a few things to do so you won't be bored while we finish up. The world will get on without you for one day, and you clearly need the rest." As she talked, her mate's face grew more and more sullen. She softened a bit, and continued, "And then the next day, we can pick an easy mission to go on to test your strength, if you feel up to it."

He brightened a bit, and looked at her hopefully. "And then we can have sex again, too?"

Despite her palpable fear and worry, Lucy smiled a bit at his adorable face. "Yes, but only if you rest all day tomorrow. If you don't, then I won't have sex with you for...for a week!" The ultimatum was painful for her to make, but she did her best to keep that emotion off of her face.

It seemed to work, because her dragon slayer hurriedly promised with a dismayed face, "Ok! Ok, you win! I'll stay in bed all day and be good."

Lucy allowed herself an inner sigh of relief. They hadn't gone more than half a day without sex since they had started seeing each other, and she honestly wasn't sure how she would fare if she had to deliver on her threat of no sex for an entire week. On the outside, however, she nodded regally. "Good. Now let's get dressed and head back home. You have some resting to do."


	28. Chapter 28

At home in their bed, Natsu sighed. He was bored. Happy and Lucy had already gone to finish cleaning out the apartment. He had been left alone to his own devices, but not before his mate had warned him several times that he was not, under any circumstances, to leave the bed, or suffer a sexless week. It was actually kind of funny, he mused. He had been a virgin a couple weeks ago, but now the idea of not being able to have sex for just a week seemed unfathomable to him.

So, although Lucy had gotten her way in the end, it didn't make Natsu any happier about it. He wasn't feeling nearly bad enough to be stuck in bed all day, doing nothing while his family was out doing work that he should be helping with.

He couldn't deny that something was wrong, though. He had known it ever since he had tried to take down Renard the second time. His punch then hadn't contained nearly the amount of power that it normally did. His magic simply wasn't at its usual level. And it was getting weaker by the day, seeming to take his strength along with it. At first he had hoped that it really was what he had told Lucy, simply a draining of strength because of all the furniture he'd had to move. As the week had worn on, however, he had become more and more sure that exhaustion simply wasn't the entire story. Whatever was happening, he knew that it was somehow connected to his magic supply. But how?

At least being stuck alone in bed all day is giving me time to think, he reflected wryly. He frowned up at the ceiling. The more he thought, though, the more he was beginning to agree with Lucy. It did seem like more than a coincidence that all of this had started happening when the mating marks had appeared. Natsu sighed and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to think better.

He spent the better part of half an hour wracking his memory and reliving every conversation he'd ever had with Igneel about mating. Finally, he opened his eyes again and admitted defeat to himself. He had reached the limit of his firsthand dragon mating knowledge. And since Lucy, the queen of books, hadn't been able to find an answer in her research, it didn't seem that there was anything further he could do. He supposed that his symptoms would keep happening, or, if he was unlucky, get worse. He didn't let himself follow that thought to what would happen to him at the end of that possibility. Natsu huffed hot air out of his nostrils, having reached a determination: He just wouldn't let himself get any worse. He'd do everything that he could to build up his strength and magical reserves again. And in the meantime, he'd have to tough it out around Lucy so that she wouldn't worry about him. He was pretty sure that he would rather be tortured within an inch of his life than see Lucy's terrified face hovering over him again. She was his mate, dammit, and that meant that he had to take care of her. Which meant that she couldn't be allowed to be upset over him when she was supposed to be always happy, always shining her star-bright smile. Natsu would happily die for that smile.

He felt a lot better now that he had decided on a plan of attack, and sat up in the bed with determination. Now he just had to figure out the best way to rebuild his strength.

Luckily for him, he was still puzzling out his plan when Lucy arrived back home with a few odds and ends, so he hadn't moved from their bed. When he heard the door creak open, he hurriedly released the flames he was building in his palms and crashed back down onto the mattress. As she walked over to the bed, he made a mental note not to oil the door hinges any time soon. He got the feeling his mate wouldn't like his plan to combat his weakness, so he'd probably be needing all the warning he could get of her entrances.

He waited until he felt Lucy's weight sink into the mattress to turn over and face his partner with a genuine smile at her presence. He was pretty sure he'd never get tired of looking at her. It was hard to believe how much light she brought into his world. Ever since he had met her, Natsu had gotten more and more used to her influence on him, absorbing her warmth like the slow sinking into a hot spring. He had nearly forgotten what life had been like before her smiles had dotted constellations into his sky, and he was determined to do whatever it took to keep her happy in return.

As he lost himself a little in his love, Lucy's worried eyes accosted him. "How have you been feeling today?" she demanded, somehow still gentle in her verbal and physical examination of his condition. Her hands pressed softly to his forehead, his cheeks, and then prodded various places in his arms and torso as she watched his face for any reaction.

Natsu's mouth crinkled up at one corner. As annoying as her poking was, it was also irresistibly cute. He intercepted her hands in their trek across his stomach, and yanked her down on top of him. As she squealed in protest, he pressed his lips to hers in a sweet, lingering kiss. At first Lucy seemed hesitant, but she quickly returned the kiss, her body language as demanding as her tone had been. She leaned further down, her chest pressing into his, nipping at his mouth, licking along his lower lip, asking for entry.

He broke away, holding her soft face in both hands. "Hey, slow down there, beautiful," he laughed. "Where's Happy at?"

Lucy looked a bit put out at being stopped. "He went to the guild to see if he could find Carla. Ever since we...mated, he's seemed to be more resolute than ever about pursuing her." She turned her face within his loose grip to capture one of his pinky fingers in her mouth. She ran her tongue down it and sucked gently, then turned her gaze to meet his. "Can I kiss you again now?" she asked around the digit that was still in her mouth.

Fuck, she was good. Dumbly, Natsu nodded. He watched, entranced, as she suckled on his finger for a half second longer before releasing it, keeping her eyes locked on his, seeming to draw immense pleasure from his hitching breath. Contrary to her question, she didn't seem to have any intention of returning to his mouth, instead running hers down his forearm, over the hardness of his bicep, nipping sharply at his shoulder. As he twitched at her bite, she jerked back and looked down at him in concern. "Natsu, are you sure you're feeling better?" she asked, searching his face carefully.

He knew that this was his chance to set her fears to rest, and stop her questioning before she realized that he was worried, too. Steeling his heart, he turned on what he hoped was his most seductive smirk. "Why don't you let me show you?" he purred.

Not waiting for her response, Natsu grasped her wrists lightly and flipped them over so he was straddling her hips. His cock twitched at their new positioning, and he eagerly listened to his body's demands. He bent his head down to Lucy's chest, and began to lave his tongue eagerly over her exposed mounds of flesh. Lucy whined and struggled against his hold. Ignoring her feeble attempts, Natsu clamped his teeth down over her clothed nipple. She strained upwards, protesting brokenly, "Naahatsuu, let me take my...shirt ooooff!"

Still holding her nipple delicately with his teeth, he shook his head at her.

She squirmed harder. "Pleeeease? I need...I need you on my skin." She ground her hips upwards into his as she begged.

Not bothering to answer, Natsu shifted his weight so he could place one knee in between her quivering thighs. He sure as hell wasn't going to let her tempt him too early. He was determined to convince her of his health very thoroughly, and rushed sex had no place in that plan. He bit down a bit harder and suckled her nipple through her top to illustrate that point to her, and she keened and ground her core on his proffered thigh muscle.

Natsu spent the next several slow minutes tantalizing her in this way, nipping, licking, and teasing her breasts, all without making any move to take her shirt off. Looking up periodically to gauge his lover's reaction, he waited until her face was crimson with restrained lust and frustration before he freed her hands, quickly flipping the hem of her shirt over her chest before she had time to register what was happening. And then, as she heaved her breath in and out, he got to start the delicious torture all over again, savoring the honey vanilla of her skin with each taste.

Eventually, he decided that her breasts had received enough attention for now. The entire time he had been lavishing them, Lucy had been grinding her wet core on his leg. The plump cheeks of her ass had been rubbing him, too, and he had taken all he could of the sweet agony. With a snarl, he moved his leg so he could flip her over. Roughly, he yanked down her shorts and panties in one harsh movement. As Lucy gasped with shock, Natsu wasted no time in getting his painfully hard cock out from the confines of his clothes. Grabbing his mate by her hips, he pulled her up to her hands and knees, and in one hard thrust, entered her.

Lucy arched her spine and her head lolled back onto her shoulders at the sudden joining. Natsu decided this was the perfect invitation for him, reaching out to grab a handful of her hair in a gentle but firm grip as he began a ruthless pace within her. His other hand he kept latched around her hip, fingers curling into the luscious swell of her ass, keeping her in place during his rough staccato lovemaking.

She moaned jaggedly under him, and Natsu felt his release coming all too soon. Fuck, I must have played with her tits too long, he thought desperately to himself. Along with that realization came another, much more serious thought. Shit, I really gotta keep it together after I come. I'd better not pass out again, or she'll know something's wrong. With this thought firmly in mind, Natsu let go of Lucy's hair to reach around and massage her sensitive spot, urging her on to her release with him. The clenching of her walls in orgasm drew him over the edge with her. The second he started to feel his cum, Natsu steeled his will, channeling all his concentration into staying conscious. The edges of his vision started to blacken, and his legs felt weak, but he tightened down on his control, and by some miracle, managed to flop down onto the bed before passing out.

As he lay there, panting, he saw Lucy's face come into view beside him, worry etched into her forehead. "Natsu? Are you feeling ok?" she asked anxiously when she located his eyes on her own.

He reached out and smoothed a finger along her fear lines. "I thought you didn't like when your forehead got all wrinkly," he teased.

She slapped his hand away. "That's not funny right now. How do you feel?"

Mustering up all the strength he had left, Natsu managed to roll himself over and prop his head in one hand casually. "I'm fine, see? I was just tired from the move, like you said, I guess. But I got lots of sleep, and the best medicine." He slapped Lucy's bare ass flirtatiously.

She still looked doubtful, but she nodded. "Yeah, I guess you do look ok."

Natsu brightened. "Then can we go on a quest tomorrow? We'd better start getting to work if you want to expand that bathroom."

Lucy scrutinized him carefully before answering. "Ok. We'll go on one tomorrow. But I get to pick out what we do. Right now, I want to you rest some more. I'll make you some dinner, and we'll go from there." She got up to walk towards the kitchen, and Natsu breathed a silent sigh of relief. She hadn't noticed anything. Good.

He allowed his body to relax back onto the mattress, and he found himself staring up again at the ceiling that didn't have any more answers now than it had this morning.

What the hell was he going to do?


	29. Chapter 29

Lucy rummaged around in a box and finally managed to dig out one of her aprons. As she tied it around her bare waist, she let out a little sigh at the labyrinth of cardboard in their home. She wouldn't be surprised if it took them months to fully get everything from her old apartment settled into this house. Like she had pointed out to Natsu previously, the size of the little cottage wasn't exactly on their side in that matter. But he did seem very determined to expand on it as quickly as possible to please her. Why was it that joining their physical lives was seeming to take so much more work than joining the two of them emotionally had? That had been so slow and natural that she had barely noticed it until her bookstore revelation of love.

She directed a glance back at Natsu, and saw he had rolled over onto his back. She gathered from the even rise and fall of his chest that he had fallen asleep again. Despite herself, Lucy smiled fondly, chased quickly by a furrowed frown. Clearly, he was more tired than he wanted her to see. At the very least, though, he had seemed a lot more recovered than yesterday when he had passed out. She did think it was worth letting him try a mission the next day, but she was definitely going to make good use of her stipulation of being the one to choose a job. Something that would simply require a warm wizard body more than a fight would suit their needs perfectly. As she shuffled around the kitchenette, humming and assembling ingredients, she started to make a mental list of jobs types that would fit her requirements.

She was so absorbed in her mental checklist that she didn't hear Happy enter the house until he pushed the door shut behind him with a sharp crack that made her head whip around. When she identified the blue Exceed as the source of the noise, she scowled and raised a finger to her lips in a shushing motion, pointing at their dragon slayer's sleeping form before waving the cat over to her.

Happy glided over to the kitchen, stopping within whispering range of Lucy. "Sorry, Lucy. I didn't know he was sleeping."

Lucy smiled and shook her head. "I'm not mad, you just startled me more than anything," she replied in a low voice. "It wasn't really all that loud." As she went back to chopping ingredients, she asked, "So any luck today?"

Happy sighed dejectedly and landed on the back of a nearby chair. "Not really. She wouldn't even come out of her human form when I was talking to her."

Lucy rumpled the fur on his head affectionately. "Sorry, Happy. Rough day, huh?"

He nodded, then looked up and asked, "So how was Natsu today?"

Lucy darted another glance over at the man to make sure his breathing still indicated sleep. Satisfied, she turned back to her friend and whispered, "He definitely seems better, but I can tell he's still pretty fatigued. He wants to go on a mission tomorrow to prove to me that he's doing ok. I told him we could if I got to pick it out. I'm going to go to the guild later to see if I can find a good one, like the restaurant work or simple escort service, or something like that."

Happy jumped up. "Oh, I think I saw the perfect job at the guild! It was fairly low-paying security job, so they're probably not expecting a lot of danger. Should I go grab it for you?"

"That would be perfect, thank you! Just read it again before you take it and make sure we won't be going anywhere too dangerous."

"Aye aye, sir!" the cat saluted. As he took off into the air, he smiled mischievously and asked, "By the way, Lucy, why are you naked?"

Very belatedly, Lucy remembered that she hadn't actually put on clothes under her apron before starting dinner. She felt her face burn, and stuttered, "SH-SHUT UP, YOU DUMB CAT!"

At her yell, Natsu jumped up into the air off of the bed, then scrambled for his footing, yelling groggily, "What's wrong, Luce? You ok?"

In the following chaos, Happy left to go back to the guild, looking very pleased with himself.

The next day, the three of them set out from their house to pick up the cargo from the client. Lucy and Natsu walked close together, their fingers intertwined and their shoulders brushing together, with Happy next to Natsu. During their light conversation, Lucy kept a wary eye on her mate, looking for any signs of weariness, stumbling, or anything else worrying. She tried her best to be discrete, but she couldn't hide anything from Natsu. As they turned down the street of their client's house, Natsu pulled their little group off to the side of the walkway, took Lucy by the shoulders, and stated firmly, "I promise that I'm not going to fall over, ok, Starshine? You don't have to be so worried about me."

Dammit, why does he have to know me so well? Lucy cursed internally. Looking Natsu in the eyes, she searched his gaze openly for hints of exhaustion, since the charade was obviously useless now. Finally, she said, "I know you're strong, Natsu, but you have to let me know if you get tired, ok? We can take breaks if we need to. It's not a big deal."

He rolled his eyes at her, and turned to the Exceed. "Geez, Happy, do you hear her? She's a mom already."

His feline friend didn't share his amusement. "Lucy's right, Natsu. We're both just worried about you. I can carry you if you need it."

Natsu grunted shortly. "Tch. Fine, you two. I promise I'll be careful, ok? Even though there's nothing wrong. Now let's just go pick up the stupid boxes." Not waiting for the rest of his team, he turned around and stalked off.

Lucy and Happy passed a look back and forth. "Maybe we should just keep our worries to ourselves?" Happy asked.

Lucy shook her head. "No, he needed to hear us say that we're concerned. We both know that he'll never look after himself, so that leaves us to do it. Anyway, let's go catch up with him. He moved fast. Looks like he needs help loading that cart." The two of them trotted off to help Natsu finish loading up the small wagon parked outside their client's shop.

Despite their fears, the loading went quickly and easily, and they were on their way within half an hour. The trip was completely uneventful, and it was the work of a couple hours to deliver and unload the magical supplies to the little shop's sister branch in an adjacent town. Nevertheless, Lucy didn't let herself relax until all the materials had been unloaded, the empty crates returned to the wagon, and the trio were well on their way back to Magnolia. When the first buildings on the outskirts of the town came into view, Lucy finally breathed a sigh of relief. Natsu had held up well through all the strenuous physical work, and hadn't showed any signs of tiring. Internally, she gave herself permission to feel reassured.

At the same moment, as if they could hear her thoughts, a sudden chaos erupted as several men burst out of the trees at once. Natsu reacted first, leaping up with a flaming fist, yelling, "Get down, Luce. They must have followed us from the magic shop. I'll deal with them." Before she had time to point out how ridiculous his demands were, he had jumped headlong into the fray. Lucy scrambled up from her seat to join him, standing on the wagon's tongue to open the gate for Sagittarius.

Lucy had quickly dealt with a few of the robbers when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement. Given the situation, it wasn't unusual at all, but something about it made her snap her head around in search of the source.

Just in time to see Natsu fall.

Her heart plummeted down to the ground as he did, and she screamed as his feet folded under him. Happy spun around, and seeing his motion clicked Lucy's brain back into operational mode. She shrieked, "Happy, go get Natsu! Fly him up somewhere until I deal with them!" He nodded, and Lucy watched until her love was out of the way before she turned her full attention back to the fight, flaring with anger and fear.

With her hyper-charged emotions, she and Sagittarius made quick work of the thieves. Dismissing Sagittarius and calling up Virgo, she barked out quick instructions for the maid spirit to bind up the criminals, then ran over to where Happy had set Natsu down on the ground. "Happy, how's he doing?" she called as she got within hearing range, not noticing the shrill set of her voice.

Happy raised his face to look at her, and his expression froze her lungs. "He's not waking up," the little cat responded desperately.

Having reached them, Lucy fell to her knees beside her mate, taking quick stock of his vitals. She located his pulse and breath, both worryingly shallow to her. She made a swift decision, and looked back up at Happy. "Go to the guild and get Wendy. We'll follow behind you and meet her halfway." He opened his mouth like he was going to try to say something, but then shut his quivering jaw, nodded, and took off towards the guild at a speed Lucy had never seen before.

But she didn't have time to think about that right now. Bracing herself on one knee, she managed to lever Natsu up onto her back and stagger up to her feet. Slowly, agonizingly, she began to make her way towards Fairy Tail, clinging onto Natsu's limp arms and cursing her weakness. After what seemed like a lifetime in the space of a few minutes, Lucy saw a pair of figures speeding towards her in the sky, and identified them as Carla carrying Wendy, and Happy. By the time the little mage had landed, Lucy had set Natsu down and arranged him on his back so Wendy could look at him properly.

As she dropped down beside her patient, Wendy said, "Happy told us what happened. I'll look at him and see what I can do." Lucy offered nothing in the way of a reply, instead electing to sit by Natsu's other side and squeeze his hand tightly with her own.

It didn't take Wendy long to examine the fallen dragon slayer. She hovered her hands over his torso, glowing with her healing magic, as she looked up at Lucy and Happy, grim-faced. "I'm afraid it's not good," she intoned. "I don't know what's wrong with him, but something is draining his strength at an alarming speed. I'm trying to replenish some of his energy now, but it's not going to last long. We have to get him looked at by Porlyusica-san."

Numbly, Lucy nodded. She rose up, trying to haul Natsu onto her back again. Happy stopped her. "Lucy, let me take him. I'll be faster," the cat said, his voice trembling as he spoke. Mutely, Lucy nodded, and gave in to the hurt in the Exceed's eyes that echoed her own. As they flew off towards Porlyusica's cabin, Lucy darted after them, finally finding the speed she had been craving earlier as she had carried her mate.

She still arrived after her boys, noting that the door inside had been left cracked open in acquiescence of her arrival. Not stopping for pleasantries like asking permission to enter, Lucy shoved the door open so violently that it clattered against the wall behind it, earning a sharp glare from the woman who was bent over her mate's prone form on the patient bed. "Quiet it down," the elderly woman snapped as Lucy rushed over to them. "Banging the door won't fix anything here."

Breathless, Lucy demanded, "So do you know what's wrong, then?"

Porlyusica glowered at her. "Give me a minute, impatient child. What do you think I was doing when you barged in here so rudely?" Without further comment, she went back to examining her patient.

A minute later, she looked up with a grim expression just as Wendy and Carla came trotting into the cabin. Lucy felt her breath hitch in her throat as Wendy asked the question she couldn't.

"Porlyusica-san, how is he?"

The healer shook her head concisely. "It's not good. There isn't really an easy way to tell you, so I'm just going to say it. He's suffering from magic drain."

All the air left Lucy's body in the space of a breath. "What does that mean?" she demanded, although she already knew the answer.

"I can't find any cause for it, so there's nothing I can do about it. I'm sorry, but a wizard's magic is tied in with his life force, and since he's losing magic quickly, he is going to die."

Lucy's limbs went numb. From a distance, she heard someone shriek in her voice, "How long?"

Porlyusica looked her directly in the eye, but Lucy felt like she was watching someone else's horror unfold instead of participating in it.

"A week at most."


	30. Chapter 30

Natsu cracked his eyes open, feeling a throbbing ache in his shoulder. He felt woozy, like he was trying to break his way through the surface of murky water. Next to him, he heard a muffled sob. He knew that sound, deep in his bones. That was Lucy's voice. He jolted awake instantly, and tried to sit up to find out what was wrong. His body screamed at him as he moved, and he fell back onto his elbows. Deciding that was good enough, Natsu demanded in a sleep-soaked voice, "Luce, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Her head snapped up at his question, and he saw a mixture of hope and fear in her watery gaze. "Natsu! You're awake! How are you feeling?"

He ignored her question, once again barking, "What's wrong? Are you ok?"

Lucy's mouth quivered, and she burst into tears again, flinging herself onto his chest as the sobs racked through her being. The force of her body slamming into his pushed him back down onto the bed. Natsu vaguely noted his own sudden weakness, but the thought was merely a flicker in the back of his mind. He tilted his head up as far as he could, trying to see his mate as his arms encircled her and he asked again, growing more agitated, "Lucy, what's going on? What's wrong? Tell me if you're hurt!"

She lifted her face off of his now tear-soaked chest, her eyes red and raw. She snuffled loudly, clearly trying to pull herself together, and stammered out through her wavering jaw, "N–no, Natsu, I–I'm just f–f-fine. But..." tears welled up again, and she let out a coughing sob.

Natsu relaxed a little with the knowledge that his love wasn't physically hurt. The worry hadn't been alleviated much, though, because whatever was making her cry was clearly putting her in as much pain as a physical hurt. Trying his best to keep calm, he asked, "Well, if you're not hurt, what's wrong?"

A voice that wasn't Lucy's responded curtly, "She's very upset right now. You won't get much out of the child, I'm afraid."

Suddenly, Natsu remembered that the world wasn't limited to Lucy's presence, and his vision refocused as he looked around at his surroundings. He belatedly recalled that he had passed out while fighting, and a brief moment of confusion flicked through him as he noted that he was not outside anymore, but in a house that looked vaguely familiar. As his eyes located the person who had spoken to him, he realized why. It was Porlyusica's house. His brow creased as he tried to puzzle out how and why they were there.

Porlyusica herself answered his unspoken question, talking with cold, scientific precision. "You lost consciousness while using your magic during a skirmish. Your girlfriend and your other friends brought you here." A quick glance around the room located Wendy, Carla, and Happy. Having cleared up that point of confusion, Natsu opened his mouth to inform the healer that Lucy was NOT his girlfriend, but she didn't pause in her speech. "I'm not going to mince words. You passed out because you're suffering from magic drain, and the use of your magic put too great a toll on your already weakened body. You're not doing well, and there's nothing that I can do to help you. There is no cure for magic drain."

Something cold touched Natsu's spine. He gripped Lucy tightly in one arm, pushing up onto the other elbow to look at Porlyusica more fully. "What are you saying? What do you mean there's no cure? What's happening to me? And what does that have to do with Lucy?"

The mage glared at him in annoyance. "You dolt. She's upset because of your prognosis."

Natsu looked at her blankly. "My what?'

Her eyes flashed with some hidden emotion as Porlyusica snapped, "There is no cure for magic drain. Your magic is tied in with your life force, so as your magic continues to seep away, so will your life. There is no way to replenish this with magic. You are dying."

At the harsh word, Lucy cringed in his arms, and pressed more firmly into him. Numbly, Natsu echoed, "I'm...dying?"

A brusque nod. "Yes. And soon."

The word focused his thoughts a little bit. "How soon?" he demanded.

Porlyusica hesitated briefly. He distantly noted that even she had emotions, despite her gruff front. "About a week. Probably a little bit less."

A loud wail came from the collapsed bundle on his chest. The voice of his mate drew him out of his shock a bit, and he dipped his head down to kiss her hair gently. He raised his head back up, and asked quietly, "Can you all give us a minute, please?" Silent nods and acquiescence met his request, as the humans and Exceeds got up to leave the room. Happy flew over to Natsu, tears streaming from his eyes, and gave his best friend a tight hug. Natsu returned it the best that he could with the arm he was leaning on, trying to reassure his little friend through his body language. Finally, Happy broke away and flew swiftly out of the room, his tears trailing behind him.

For a long time, Natsu simply held his love and stroked her hair as she sobbed into him softly. He quietly accepted the outpour of agony from her soul, glad to take on any of her pain that she was able to give up. Finally, her body stilled, and she burrowed her face into his scarf, her breath hitching sporadically as she gathered her shattered emotions around her.

When her breathing evened out, Natsu quietly kissed the back of her head and said, "How are you doing, Starshine?"

Lucy laughed bitterly, and her muffled voice came from his scarf. "Oh, I'm fantastic. I just found out that the only man I've ever loved is going to..." her voice trailed off with a hitch.

He sighed and rested his cheek on her silken hair. "I know, beautiful. I know. Shhhh. It's ok."

Another harsh bark of laughter. "In what twisted world is any of this even vaguely ok, Natsu?"

Her words struck true in his mind, fueling a fear of his fate, but his heart protested that he had to care for his mate. "I know it's not ok," he sighed. "I'm...I'm dying. And I know that's hurting you. A lot." He squeezed her shoulder hard, drawing strength from her essence.

A sharp stab of anger struck him. Hot tears pricked at his eyes as he curled his head down into his mate and growled, "Dammit! I wish you had never met me! Or that I had never kissed you."

Lucy's body hardened, and a frozen aura emanated from her. She drew up stiffly away from his body, and faced him fully. Her eyes flashed and shone with unshed emotion as she shrilled, "What the hell do you mean? Are you saying you wish we'd never gotten together? Do you regret being with me now that you know you're dying? Maybe wishing you had spent your time on someone more worthwhile? Am I not good enough for you?" As he stared at her, open-mouthed in shock, her tirade switched over to a babble of pleas, coming too fast and loud for Natsu to get any words in between them. "Please let me stay with you, Natsu. I promise I can take care of you. I don't care if you do regret being with me, I can make this work for you. I just want to–to stay with you until...until the end! I'll do whatever you need, so please, just let me stay. I know I'm weak, and annoying, and not all that much to look at, but I...I just wanted to share my life with you. I might not be the person you want to spend the rest of your time with, but I need you so badly! I need to touch you, and hold you, and..." She started to cry, fluid leaking unheeded out of the corners of her eyes in a steady stream as she continued, "...Please! Oh, Natsu, even if you don't love me very much, I love you so dearly, and nobody can take better care of you than I can. I'll do everything I can to make you...comfortable..." Lucy reached out to grip his scarf with both hands, rasping out a final plea in a gravelly voice. "Please! I just...I love you so much! I–"

In her brief falter, Natsu finally found a place for his voice to go, and he levered himself up to a sitting position through sheer willpower in order to get her attention. He gripped the sides of her face firmly, leveling his gaze at her and addressing her in a steel tone. "Lucy. Just stop. You're being fucking ridiculous."

Her eyes widened, and her face crumbled under his touch. "But...Natsu, why? Why don't you want me? I–I just–love you...so...much..." Her voice dissolved into fresh sobs as her mouth opened wide in a silent scream of internal pain, heaving with emotion.

Horrified, Natsu grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and yanked her into him. He clutched onto her, and his iron resolve of just a moment ago vanished as panic overtook him. "No, love! No, never! Don't even think that I don't want you! I love you so, so much. You know that. Don't ever say stupid shit like that. I don't regret my time with you at all, and I've loved every single second of our relationship. Almost as much as I love you, which is a lot!"

Lucy tried to draw back from him a bit, but Natsu just smashed her body more tightly into his, unwilling to lose a millimeter of the physical reassurance he wanted to give her. She gave up, and her smothered voice asked wetly, "Then why did you say...that you wish we'd never met?"

Natsu exhaled gently, then drew in the floral-vanilla scent of her hair, soothing himself with her aroma. "Luce, I didn't mean it like that. I only meant...well, I wish that for your sake that you had never met me. Never fallen in love with me. Never been with me as my mate. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be in pain right now." Lost in his anger at himself, Natsu failed to notice the gradual steeling of his mate's muscles. He continued, "You would have found some other man to love, to care for with your whole being. And now...now, that's all I want for you. I want you to forget about me, Luce. You shouldn't stay with me through this. It's only going to get worse as the magic drain increases. I don't want you to have to live through that pain with me. I want you to go off somewhere, and try to forget about me." The words became difficult, but he pushed them out of his mouth, for the love of his Lucy. "I want you to...find someone else. Someone who can make you happy–"

Lucy rocketed backwards out of his arms, and a shock of pain flew across his cheek. The loud sound of a slap echoed through the now-silent room, as Natsu's eyes shot open wide and his mind froze. Sure, he'd been on the receiving end of plenty of Lucy Kicks and punches from his sweet celestial mage, but those hadn't come out of pure anger. Never before had she slapped him. Never before had she conveyed such complete disgust with him in a single physical touch.

Slowly, he turned his head back towards her, meeting her eyes. The look on her face was one he had never seen on her. A mixture of fury, agony, and steely determination. She curled her lips back and spat at him in a hiss, "Never. EVER. Say stupid shit like that, EVER again. Do you hear me?"

Dumbly, Natsu nodded in the face of his mate's raw display of emotion. Lucy seethed, "You are the ONLY person who can make me happy. And even if I have to live through the pain of...of losing you, this is still the best thing that has ever happened to me. I don't care how much it hurts. I'd never take back a single second of this. So don't even start spouting self-sacrificing bullshit at me about how you want me to be happy with someone else, because that's never going to happen. I can't be happy with another guy. It's just you, always, even if..." she lost some of her angry bravado as her lower lip trembled.

Wordlessly, Natsu cupped her hands in his own, and dipped his head down to kiss her fingertips. He flinched as he felt her move above him, fearing another slap, but she simply rested her forehead on his hair, and he leaned his own forehead onto her shoulder for support.

They sat like that for a long time, silently drawing strength from each other. Finally, Natsu murmured, "Luce, I'm so sorry. You're right, I was being selfish. It's your decision if you want to stay with me, and I can't believe you love me enough to choose this. But you can't blame me too much for wanting to protect the most precious thing in my life, can you? I just...I want you to never be in pain."

Lucy lifted her head up, and Natsu followed suit so he could see her face as she sucked in a shaky breath and answered. "I know. And I know the rest of this is going to be hard, but...well, I need to take care of you. Do you understand that? I don't really know how to explain it, other than I can't abandon you now."

He nodded, and carefully reached out a hand to touch her damp cheek, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her mouth. "I'm so sorry, Lucy."

She relaxed her head more fully into his hand. "Natsu?"

He brushed over her cheekbone with his thumb. "Yeah?"

Lucy shuddered in a breath, then looked him square in the face. "Let's get married."

His eyes hardened. "Luce. No. You shouldn't do that. You don't want to chain yourself to a dying man. This is going to be hard enough without adding that tie on top of everything."

"That's exactly why I want to do it. I...I just want anything that will link us together, anything to remind me that we belong to each other, no matter what." Lucy gave a bitter laugh. "I never thought I'd be the one begging you to marry me."

"Lucy, come on. Please see this from my point of view. The more you have to remind you of me, the more it will hurt when...I'm gone."

Lucy stubbornly shook her head. "No, Natsu. I just...need this. Need the reassurance of your presence. I want to bear your name, and your love, and...and your child."

Natsu started back. "Whoa, there, one idea at a time! Marriage in this situation is one thing, but a child? Don't be crazy!" He couldn't help but silently agree with Lucy about the irony of their newly reversed roles in this discussion.

"Natsu, it's not like I didn't already want to marry you and have your child. I just thought it was too soon, is all. But now, when this is all the time we have left...we have to fit the rest of our lives into this space, the best we can. And I want to be able to hold your child in my arms and whisper to her about how wonderful her daddy is, and we'll love and remember you together. And that way...you'll never really be gone from me."

Her argument pricked at his heart, and Natsu felt his resolve evaporate into the sky like a cloud of mist. He gave a defeated sigh. "All right, Starshine. I understand. But you do know there's no guarantee that you'll even get pregnant in a week?"

A firm nod. "I know, but I need to try."

Natsu gave her a small smile in return. "Well, then, we can't have you being an unwed mother. Let's plan a wedding."


	31. Chapter 31

The next few days went by much too quickly, consumed by tender caresses, soft reassurances of devotion, and slow, desperate lovemaking. Lucy had opted to leave the details of the ceremony to Erza, on the condition that everything be as simple as possible. Neither of them wanted any kind of fuss in Natsu's condition. He worsened daily, growing steadily weaker despite Wendy's frequent trips to their house for replenishing spells. Finally, the evening before the wedding, she pulled Lucy aside as she was ready to leave and whispered to the celestial mage that the spell wouldn't be effective at all for very much longer. Lucy simply nodded and gently ushered the healer along on her way. The news was expected by the one who saw best what was happening with Natsu, and by the dragon slayer himself, who heard all that went on in the main room of the house with his sharp ears. Nevertheless, Natsu was woken up in the middle of the night by his mate's muted sobs as she cried into her pillow. Without saying anything, Natsu turned over and wrapped his arm tightly around her middle, curling her body snugly into his, holding her until she fell asleep, tears still leaking from the corners of her eyes.

The next morning, Erza and the other bridesmaids came early to whisk the bride away to get ready. Lucy went along with them good-naturedly, laughing in a light way that didn't fool Natsu at all.

Shortly after the girls left, Gray came, already wearing his suit, to help Natsu get himself dressed. Normally, Natsu would have scorned this ritual, but he gave in quietly, doing his best to stand up straight as Happy assisted the ice wizard with the seemingly endless layers and trappings of Natsu's suit. When he was finally dressed, and they had located all the stripped-off pieces of Gray's suit as well, the three of them made their way to a small forest clearing near the house. Erza had picked the location not only for its natural, whimsical beauty, but for its proximity to the place Natsu would be walking from. Although nobody had mentioned it, most guild members knew that Natsu's once-legendary strength was waning fast, and the less distance he had to travel to his wedding, the better.

As Natsu neared the clearing, he smiled. It sounded like the entire guild had turned out for the wedding. And while he was sure Gramps had tried to beat good behavior into all his children, they only sounded slightly less rambunctious than normal. Natsu's smile stretched into a grin. The love and energy of their guild was exactly what his Lucy needed today. He had never loved his guildmates as much as he did at that moment.

They entered the ceremony area directly behind a large floral arbor that had been set up facing rows and rows of white chairs. Gray led Natsu to a chair next to the arbor, leaving him there to catch his breath as the groomsman went to confer quietly with Gramps, who would be officiating the ceremony. Gray came back a few seconds later, pulling Natsu to his feet. "Time to go," he informed Natsu. "The girls are all ready, they were just waiting for us."

Natsu nodded, and allowed himself to be led under the awning to await his princess as Gray and Happy disappeared back into the trees to meet up wherever the girls were hiding. Thankfully for his less-than-steady legs, the entrance music started shortly after, and the guild quieted down and turned to watch the attendants walk down the aisle. First came Happy and Erza, the best man and maid of honor. Following them were Gajeel and Levy, Gray escorting a very pink Juvia, Laxus and Lisanna, and lastly, Cana being escorted by Gildarts. At the sight of him, Natsu grinned. The last he had known, nobody knew where Cana's father was, and he was thrilled to see his old friend and mentor actually at his wedding.

Quickly, though, all thoughts in his head fled as the wedding processional music began, and all the guests stood in a mostly orderly fashion for the entrance of the bride.

Natsu caught sight of her, and all function in his body seemed to cease. Everything froze around him, sunlight slatting through branches overhead, dew still sparkling on late-morning grass, and at the center of it all was Lucy, the only moving thing in the world. She wore a strapless gown, the top of it arching up into two curves over her breasts, mimicking the shape of a heart. At her waist, the gown billowed out around her in mounds of tulle, trailing behind her as she made her way towards him and giving her an ethereal look that was enhanced perfectly by the shimmering air around her. The only thing Natsu didn't like was the veil of flowery lace that was covering her beautiful face. It didn't prevent him from seeing her, but at that moment, he intensely longed to remove the thin piece of cloth that was separating her full lips from his.

As she reached him and took her place at his side, a radiant smile danced over her face, and Natsu amended his earlier thinking. This was what was lighting up the clearing, not the lazy sunlight.

The ceremony passed by in a haze, with Natsu spending most of it staring dumbly at the beautiful woman next to him. He vowed in his heart that he would do everything in his power to make her happy in the little time he had remaining, to fill up their days with enough love to last her for the rest of her life. As he was making these promises to himself, he heard Lucy's lilting voice say, "I do," with a small catch in her words as she reached out to grasp his hands. With a start, Natsu realized that it was now his turn to repeat their marriage vows, and he did so automatically, but he knew with clear certainty that the real vows were being exchanged in their eyes, not in the words they were reciting in front of their beloved guild.

Before he had realized what was happening, Natsu heard Gramps ask what he recognized as the final question: "Do you, Natsu Dragneel, promise to take Lucy Heartfilia as your lawfully wedded wife, and to keep these promises to her for the rest of your days?"

Lucy's face sharpened into focus, and all he saw were her eyes, hazy with love and unshed tears, as he swore to her huskily, "I do."

Without warning, the air around them crackled, and a sudden heat flared from Natsu's shoulder. Several of their guildmates screamed or shouted at once. Natsu barely even registered this reaction, however, because as he watched, Lucy's eyes fluttered, and her feet gave way underneath her.

Swiftly, Natsu's hands shot out, and he cradled Lucy around her waist and neck, halting her fall to the forest floor. Gently, he knelt down, lowering her legs to the ground and keeping her torso propped up by his knee. He angrily ripped her veil off of her face so he could watch her for signs of distress. With this new positioning, one of his hands held her shoulder, and he abruptly noticed a searing heat coming from her left shoulder, hot as a stove top. He yanked her body forward, flipping her limp head onto his chest so he could get a better look.

To his shock, he saw that her mating mark had flared up to a burning red, and shimmered with the bright heat of a flame. In awe, he reached out a finger to touch it.

When their skin connected at the mark, Natsu felt a sharp twin pain at the crown of his head and between his shoulder blades, and heard the sound of his clothing ripping violently away. At the same time, however, his bride jerked in his arms, and groggily tilted her head up towards him, and instantly whatever was happening to his own body was meaningless.

"Lucy, are you ok? What happened?" Natsu demanded, shaking her a little to ensure she was really awake.

She moaned, replying, "I'm not really sure. All of a sudden I–" but her words stopped short as she cracked her eyes open to look at him. Her mouth gaped, and her eyes widened as she stared up at him.

Panic clutched his heart. "Luce, what's wrong? Are you feeling like you're going to pass out again? Should we get Wendy over here?"

Lucy ignored his questions, instead sputtering as she stared. "Natsu, you...you have wings!"

He frantically put his hand to her forehead. Clearly she was not ok. She was hallucinating. He lifted up his mate in his arms as he stood fluidly, scanning the crowded seats.

Lucy continued to stare up at his face. "And...you have horns." Her voice sounded more analytical than her last revelation had.

This was extremely worrying to Natsu. He gave up on trying to find the mage on his own, and instead shouted out over their clamorous guildmates, "Where's Wendy? Who the hell has seen Wendy? We need her, NOW!"

As he yelled, Lucy reached up, almost nonchalantly, and dragged her fingertips along the crown of his head until they hit something solid.

Wait. What?

Natsu froze. Placing Lucy's feet down on the ground, he gripped her tighter around her waist to ensure she didn't fall again, and tentatively reached his other hand up to the spot where Lucy had touched him. A hard length of something that felt like bone protruded from his head, exactly where he had experienced pain a few seconds before. He ran his hand around to the other side of his head, and felt the same thing there, too.

Huh. Seemed like Lucy was right. He had horns.

Hold on. Which meant that he...

Natsu stretched his free arm up and over his shoulder, reaching down as close as he could get to the point of his spine where he had felt pain. A texture like leather met his questing hand, and he followed the edge of it up and over his head, peaking in a sharp tip before sloping back down to the side. Experimentally, Natsu flexed the muscles that seemed closest to his new body parts, and was rewarded with a rush of air.

Well. Looked like he had wings, too.

What. The. Hell.

His detached musings were interrupted by his mate's questing hand joining his, exploring along the length of his newly-formed wing. Strangely, he found that when Lucy ran her hand along its edge, it was oddly sensual. He looked down at her, pulled snug against his body, and grinned wolfishly. As he did, he took stock of his now unusually-large fangs biting into his lower lip. Lucy stared back up at him, wide-eyed, and remarked, "Your teeth are really long."

He looked back at her. "Yeah?"

"And your eyes are completely gold now."

Natsu was feeling surprisingly light-hearted, and couldn't resist joking back at her, "All the better to see you, my dear."

That seemed to sober Lucy up a bit. She slapped his arm lightly, and chided, "This isn't a joke, Natsu. You've got wings!"

Her words seemed to break the spell of stunned silence that had fallen over the assembled audience, which suddenly erupted into cries of agreement.

"Yeah! What the hell's going on?"

"What happened to you, Natsu?"

"Are you ok? Where's Wendy?"

This last question startled Natsu back into himself. He promptly swept Lucy's feet up into his free arm, cradling her in an appropriate bridal carry as he called into the crowd, "Yeah, where is Wendy? I need her to look at Lucy!"

He scanned the guild, and located the shock of blue hair from his fellow dragon slayer, much further away than he liked.. An idea came to him, and with a cautious sweep of his new wings, he lifted the two of them up into the air with a rush of wind. Lucy shrieked and clung tightly to him, burying her face into the crook of his neck that she liked to hide in. Doing his best to exercise control over his flight, Natsu swept the two of them over the stunned faces of their guildmates, flying over to Wendy. With a large flourish, he deposited them down in front of the healer, who was staring at them with wide eyes.

Not willing to let go of his mate, Natsu snapped at Wendy, "Hey, wake up there! I need you to look at Lucy! Her mating mark went weird all of a sudden. You have to look at her, make sure she's ok!"

Lucy's head snapped up at that, and she glared at him. "Seriously, Natsu? That's your biggest concern here? You have WINGS! And...and HORNS! My mating mark is a very low priority here! We have to figure out what's going on with you!"

He growled at her, his chest rumbling a note lower than usual. "I don't give a shit about that. You're most important." Flicking his eyes away from her decisively, he locked his gaze on Wendy. "Take a look at her already, will ya?"

Wendy stopped staring at him, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it and responding, "Ah, right!" Her magic collected around her hands as she closed her eyes and hovered her palms over Lucy's mating mark. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and declared, "There's definitely nothing wrong with her. The mating mark isn't harming her. But it does have a considerably larger amount of dragon slayer magic in it than before. I'm...not really sure what that means."

Natsu persisted. "But you're sure she's ok?"

Wendy nodded brusquely. "Yes, I'm sure about that."

Lucy interrupted them impatiently. "Ok, that's great. I humored you, Natsu, and now we need to figure out what the hell is going on with you!" She squirmed in his arms, pushing at his chest. "Put me down already so Wendy can get a look at you, too!"

Reluctantly, Natsu set his wriggling bride on the ground, but didn't fully relinquish his hold on her waist. Wendy then turned her healing magic onto him for assessment. Amidst the uproar of their guildmates, Wendy studied Natsu intently for several long moments, her brow furrowed in concentration as she inspected her patient. Finally, her eyes cracked open, and she whispered in wonder, "It's...gone."

Natsu felt a prick of fear at this declaration, but before he could react, his mate shrilled, "What's gone? Is he ok? Wendy, what the hell is happening to him?!"

He glanced down at her, taking in her panicked eyes, and smoothed a reassuring hand gently over her hair, noting with vague surprise that the back of his hand was patterned with blood-red scales.

Wendy looked up and met Lucy's eyes. "The magic drain. It's...just gone. His magic is totally back to normal now." She pursed her lips. "Well, maybe not normal. It's like it's been...enhanced. Amplified. It feels like it erupted, but in a controlled way. I'm not really sure how else to describe it other than that, but I can tell you that the magic feels much purer and more...right than it has been."

Lucy stared at her blankly. "What does that even mean? More pure? Like...like there was something wrong with his magic before?"

The petite mage mulled this over, and nodded. "Yes, that's a good way to describe it. But it's definitely fine now. And, as you probably noticed, Natsu's strength is back again. He seems just as good as new, except for...his new body additions."

Natsu shrugged off that last sentence, focusing instead on Wendy's initial declaration. "Wait, so you mean I'm ok now? I'm not dying anymore?"

Wendy turned to him, a mixture of relief and concern in her eyes. "That's right. You don't seem to be suffering from magic drain anymore, so that should be fine. But there's still the matter of–"

Natsu cut her off with a loud whoop, squeezing Lucy up tightly into his arms and swirling her dangling feet around and around. "Did you hear that, Starshine? I'm going to be fine! We're going to be ok!"

Lucy laughed a bit at his antics, but then replied, "Yes, I'm glad about that! But you're kind of missing the big picture here, aren't you? YOU HAVE WINGS!"

Natsu grinned back at her. "You're right. I should be using them for something useful, shouldn't I?" He once again whisked her up into his arms, and over her protests, unfurled his wings and gave a powerful pump to propel them into the air.

Makarov yelled up at him, "What do you think you're doing, you moron?"

Natsu smirked. "I think I'm going to celebrate my marriage. See ya, losers!" Without looking back, he raised them higher up into the air, and clutching his bride in his arms, turned towards their home.


	32. Chapter 32

Lucy gaped in amazement up at her undoubtedly insane groom. What the hell was he doing? He had suddenly sprouted wings and horns, and he was just acting like they were something he'd always had, and was flying them around as if it were the most natural thing in the world. What the hell had she gotten herself into by agreeing to marry this crazy man?

Realization hit Lucy. That's right. They were married now. Officially. Legally. And…as soon as they had made their vows, Natsu had…well, basically turned into a semi-dragon. This _had_ to be something to do with mating. Quickly, Lucy turned the lines of the mating ritual over in her mind, trying to figure out how her mate's body modifications were related to their wedding vows. They had definitely done the "crimson exchange," and "achieved the marks of red." She had thought that the "love for love, life for life" had been accomplished as part of that, but maybe…

Over the beating of his wings, Lucy yelled for her mate. "Natsu!"

His face was screwed up with concentration, and he called back, "Just a minute, Princess. We're almost home, let's land first and then you can talk to me."

Lucy's mind swirled around like the currents of air that were being stirred up by Natsu's leathery wings as he set them down on the grass in front of their house and walked towards the front door. Still holding her, Natsu asked nonchalantly, "What did you need, Luce?"

She wriggled in his arms. "Natsu, you can put me down now. I'm fine, Wendy even said so!"

His grip tightened. "No way! You just passed out back there! I'm at least carrying you inside."

Lucy huffed impatiently at him. "Natsu! That's not important right now! I need to ask-"

She was cut off by his sharp voice. "Lucy, you're ALWAYS the most important thing!" Softening, he continued, "Let me make sure you're all right before anything else, or I won't be able to concentrate. Ok?"

She sighed. "Fine. You can carry me ino the house. Then put me down so we can talk."

Natsu nodded. "Sounds good." He resumed his path towards the door, kicking it open so he could carry her over the threshold. As he did, Lucy noticed that his shoes had burst open at the toes, and talons were poking through. She scrambled down out of his arms and knelt on the floor in front of him to examine his feet, impatiently shoving the tulle of her skirt out of her way. Gingerly, she traced one of his talons with her fingertip, finding it smooth like ivory. She tipped her head backwards to sputter up at Natsu, "You…you have claws!"

He gave her a lopsided grin, and she noticed his lengthened fangs again. "Check out my hands, too!" he exclaimed, holding them out for her to inspect. She grabbed onto the proffered limbs, her mouth agape. Sure enough, his fingernails had also lengthened into the same claws that now sprouted from his feet. And not only that, his fingers had changed, too. The knuckles were more pronounced, the digits themselves more slender. But the thing that was most noticeable was the covering of red scales that dusted his skin everywhere she could see. His hands were pure red from the scales, and they extended up his wrists before disappearing into the cuffs of his jacket.

"Cool, aren't they?" Natsu asked. "I noticed them when we were flying here."

Lucy stared up at him, slack-jawed. Was he honestly not concerned about this beyond thinking it was _cool_? She scowled. Well, if he wasn't going to take this seriously, that meant she had to. She stood, drawing herself as tall as she could and commanded him, "Take your shirt off."

His eyebrows shot up, drawing her attention to the scale pattern that had appeared all over his face as well, although the skin itself hadn't changed color. "Wow, Luce, you're not wasting any time in getting the honeymoon started, are you?"

She stared coldly at him. Let him think what he wanted. "Just do it," she responded in a clipped tone.

Natsu smirked. "Whatever you say, Starshine." He ripped off his tattered suit jacket, but struggled with his tie. Huffing her impatience, Lucy stepped closer to help him remove it. A warm sense of the marital intimacy of the action hit her, and her heart beamed. As she slid the tie out of his collar, she peeked up at her husband, his look reflecting her feelings. She spared him a small smile, but quickly composed her face back into the no-nonsense expression she had decided this situation called for. He might think he was fine now, but people didn't just turn into dragons. That was not normal. Lucy was starting to worry that maybe his dragon seed was coming back, and wanted to assess the full extent of his transformation. Accordingly, she dropped the tie to the floor and demanded, "Now get the shirt off."

Her mate leaned forward suddenly and captured her mouth with his own. Lucy, startled, noticed that even his lips were coated with light scales. As Natsu licked her gently for entrance, she couldn't help but whine a little at the enticing mixture of his smooth tongue and rough lips. He took that opportunity to enter her mouth, exploring her thoroughly before pulling back and asking heatedly, "I thought you were helping me get out of these clothes, Luce. Besides, how am I supposed to work buttons with these?" He held up his hands, and Lucy had to admit that his fingernails-turned-claws would be useless for fine motor work like undoing buttons. Besides, a wife should help her husband out with his formal clothes, right?

Having rationalized the intimate act, Lucy started unbuttoning her mate's vest, and then his shirt. Natsu watched her with heated golden eyes, making her fingers tremble a little. She finally got his shirt undone, and drew it open with shaking hands. Although she had half-expected the sight that greeted her, she couldn't help but gape. Every inch of his chest was covered with fiery red scales, reaching up to his neck, where it eventually faded into the less-pronounced facial scales, then dipping down into the crevice of his hips and disappearing into the covering of his pants. Lucy awkwardly yanked his ruined shirt and vest off, tracing her fingers lightly down his arms. She noticed that his skin now exuded a low, steady heat, like the warm glow of a campfire's coals after it burns out. She trailed her fingers back up the length of his arm, making Natsu shudder as her skin ghosted against the grain of his scales.

When her exploration led her back to her mate's chest, she noticed something else odd: his nipples had turned into pearly scarlet beads, stark against the expanse of scales. Gingerly, she pressed one down lightly with the pad of her finger. Natsu's muscles stiffened under her touch. Lucy glanced up quickly at his face, and then away when she saw the mischievous light in his golden eyes. She blushed a little bit, and scowled at her own reaction. She still had to assess the full extent of Natsu's…transformation. This was no time for either of them to be getting aroused.

She reached her hand up to the top of his head, ignoring the look on her mate's face as she fingered the length of one of his new horns. It was ridged and twisted around on itself gracefully, spiraling backwards and up toward his wingtips. He didn't react to her touch, so she pressed down on the horn, then wrapped her fingers around it and giving an experimental squeeze. She looked into this face then, searching as she asked, "Does that hurt or anything?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I don't really feel anything."

Emboldened, Lucy gave the horn she was holding an experimental tug.

"Ow! Now _that_ I felt," Natsu protested.

Lucy winced. "Sorry! Looks like they're pretty firmly attached."

He snorted at that. "Gee, really? They're bits of bone growing out of my skull, I could have told you they were attached."

She glared. "Considering that you've had them for less than half an hour, I thought it was worth a try to see if I could get them off."

Natsu sighed, and Lucy noticed that the noise had a lower depth of tone than usual. "Luce, can we just let this go already? I don't really care too much about all of this." Ignoring his insane ramblings, she circled around to his back to inspect his wings. They looked leathery, scalloped at the edges like those of a bat, spanning the length of his back and extending to about a foot above his head. As she was giving him a visual inspection, Natsu continued, "My dad had all of this when I was growing up, and he got around just fine. I'm just glad I'm not dying anymore. I'll gladly accept this in return." He craned his head around to look at her. "Come on, Starshine, can't we just-" Lucy reached a hand up to finger the tip of his wing, cutting off his words with a sharp gasp.

She jerked her hand away, demanding, "What? Did that hurt? Shit, Natsu, I'm so sorry…"

He was shaking his head at her. "That's not it. It just feels good. Kinda sexy, somehow." He turned his head just enough for her to see his leer. Lucy rolled her eyes at him, trying to mask the pang in her groin at his words. Trying to ignore him, she reached back out to examine his wings, smoothing her palms over the leathery surface. Under her hands, his wings visibly trembled at her touch, and when she reached the base where they connected into his back and traced around the area, a strangled noise erupted from her mate that made her blush furiously. Somehow, arousing him with his new appendages felt surprisingly dirty.

Quickly, she dropped her hands and muttered with as much sternness as she could muster, "Take off your pants so I can see."

Lucy could _feel_ his smirk as he chuckled and wordlessly began to undo his buckle. A few seconds later, his pants were pooled on the floor at his feet, and Lucy was free to continue her examination. The red scales ran down from his back in an unbroken pattern, tracing over the curves of his ass and calves, down to what she could see of his feet. She knelt down and tugged on his pant leg, snapping, "Lift up your leg so I can get your pants and shoes off all the way."

That smirk again. "Whatever you say, Princess." He complied readily enough, lifting up one clawed foot as Lucy tried to pull off the pants. From her position behind him, though, she quickly discovered that it was nearly impossible to wrestle the cloth over her husband's now-oversized foot and torn shoe. Refusing to look up at his face, Lucy scooted back around to his front, and after a short battle, managed to wrest his feet free. Tossing the offending garments aside, she leaned down to take a closer look at Natsu's claws. They looked much like those on his hands, extending from narrow, large-knuckled feet, with a wicked curve at the end. She traced the edge of one, whimpering when it nicked her skin.

Natsu immediately demanded from above her, "Hey, you ok? Let me see." Without waiting for her answer, Natsu grabbed her injured hand, yanking it up towards his face. He made a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat, managing to layer the sound with some heat, before inserting her scratched finger into his mouth and suckling gently. Lucy keened, and finally looked up into her mate's face. His golden eyes stared back down into her own brown ones, conveying all his arousal as he rolled his tongue around her digit. Suddenly, Lucy was very aware that he was completely naked, and that in her line of sight she could see obvious proof of his arousal.

Telling herself that she simply needed to be thorough in her examination of his body, she rose up onto her knees to get a better look at her husband's penis.

Just like the rest of Natsu's body, it was now covered in blood-red scales, but still managed to pulse with the beat of his veins as his arousal stood proudly in front of her. She reached out her free hand to trace up and down its length, noting that these scales were rougher, like the ones on his torso, as opposed to the smoother ones now covering his face. As she touched him, Natsu popped her finger out of his mouth, gripping her wrist tightly as he ground out, "Fuck, Luce, are you trying to kill me?"

She tried her best to glare up at him, but the sight of her naked husband standing erect in front of her was proving to be too much, and she felt a trickle of arousal drip down her thigh. "Natsu, this is serious! We have to figure out what's going on with your body! Would you please stop being so…so…"

He rocked his hips forward a bit, reminding her that she still held his cock in a loose grip. "…so what, dear wife?"

His use of the word made her heated reply catch in her throat, and she inadvertently tightened her hand a little bit on his length. As she did, Natsu grunted, and pulsed his hips forward again, within a hair's breadth of Lucy's mouth. Overwhelming curiosity hit her, and without thinking, she opened her mouth and gingerly drew her tongue around the tip of his scaled head.

Natsu stiffened, pulling up on her wrist a little, apparently forgetting that he still had a hold on her. Lucy found that she didn't really mind it, though, and finally allowed herself to give into the built-up sexual tension heating up her body. Locking her lips on the head of his cock, she slowly sucked his length into her mouth, inch by torturous inch. When she reached the base of him and rolled her tongue around, he growled and used his free hand to grab at one of her breasts savagely through the material of her gown. Lucy moaned slightly, her voice muffled by her husband's presence deep in her throat. She began to slide her mouth back off of him, noting with interest how the scales of his penis felt along the sides of her cheeks. Natsu seemed to like this very much, roughly massaging her breast as she began to work her mouth on and off of him in a slowly increasing pace as she grew more accustomed to the feel of his new skin. All too soon, though, her mate released her wrist and buried his hand into the back of her hair instead, fisting her blonde locks loosely to hold her head still. She glanced up at him inquisitively, and he gasped out, "Luce, you gotta stop, I'm about to come." She nodded slightly, enjoying the bob of his cock in her mouth as she did, then slowly released him with a wet pop.

As soon as he was out of her mouth, Natsu knelt down in front of her, sealing his mouth over hers in a searing hot kiss. All Lucy could do was throw her arms around his neck and cling onto him as he worked his tongue in a frenzied path around her mouth, leaving her panting with arousal. She was so distracted that she didn't notice his hands until it was too late, and they were savagely ripping her wedding dress off of her. Gasping, she ripped her lips away from his to screech, "Natsuuuu! That was my wedding dress! What the hell! How could you ruin it like that?!"

Looking completely non-repentant, Natsu nuzzled into her neck, kissing the sensitive spot underneath her ear and murmuring, "Relax, Princess, I'll help you fix it up later. Besides, how the hell did you think I'd get it off of you otherwise with my hands like this?" His reply raised more questions than they answered, but she forgot about all of them as he nipped at her earlobe and pushed her down onto the ground on top of the fan of her ruined dress.

Natsu slid his hands down the inside of her thighs, trailing his claws tantalizingly over her skin. Gently, he pressed her legs open, looking down at her hungrily. He grinned. "Geez, Luce, you're already dripping," he teased.

Lucy's cheeks flushed, and she stammered, "Sh-shut up! Stupid dragon!"

Natsu turned his predatory gaze up to her face. "Yep, and now the dragon's ready to eat the princess he captured." Keeping his golden eyes locked on hers, he lowered his face down to her dripping opening, and licked slowly up her slit. Lucy shuddered, hands reflexively shooting out to grasp his horns. Natsu's taunting expression was replaced by one of surprise, then quickly settled into smug satisfaction. He began to pleasure her in earnest, licking, suckling, and nipping at her with his elongated fangs until she screamed out his name in shuddering release.

As she was riding out her orgasm, Natsu wasted no time in settling in between her thighs, and hooking his arms under her knees. Lucy's mind was still reeling when he pressed his erection gently inside of her.

Instantly, Lucy's head snapped backwards and she let out a small wail. The scales on his cock rasped tantalizingly slowly over her inner ridges as her husband seated himself fully within her. Gasping, he pressed kisses to her exposed neck and murmured, "Does it hurt, Princess?"

She shook her head emphatically, too blissful to get any words out of her mouth. Natsu mumbled against her skin, "I'm going to start, then. You have to tell me if it hurts you, ok?" She nodded wordlessly.

With this permission, her husband slowly withdrew from her heat, and thrust back in again in one savage stroke. He must have liked the strangled cry that burst from her lips at the sensation, since he repeated this action again and again until she was a whimpering mess on top of the ruined fabric of her gown. And just when she thought she couldn't take any more of the sweet agony, Natsu trailed his tongue down her flesh and clamped his mouth around her nipple. This sent her crashing into an orgasm, shuddering and clinging onto the bunched tulle beneath her for dear life.

When she regained her sight, Lucy looked blearily up into the smug gold eyes of her dragon slayer. He smirked and said, "Oh, you're back. Good, because I'm not nearly done with you yet." Before she could think of a reply, he grabbed her by the ankles and pressed her legs down, forcing her ass further up in the air as her thighs pressed to her chest. Natsu began sliding in and out of her again, driving throaty moans out of her at the depth of their coupling. After a while, Natsu released his hold on one of her ankles, allowing her leg to bounce forward until it was caught by his muscular shoulder. With his now-free hand, he roughly grabbed one of her bouncing breasts, inadvertently digging his claws into her supple skin. Lucy cried out, reveling in the new sensations they were experiencing with her husband's new body.

Suddenly, Lucy noticed that her foot was very close to Natsu's new wings, bobbing up and down with each stroke he took inside of her. A thought entered her mind, and she lifted her foot up slightly to trace it along the top ridge of her husband's wing. As she did, Natsu groaned, and immediately stopped moving inside of her. She smiled wickedly, but managed to ask in a questioning voice, "Hey, why did you stop? Are you ok?"

He glared down at her and growled, "You know perfectly well what you did. Don't play the innocent victim with me."

She smiled up at him as sweetly as she could and replied in a singsong voice, "I'm not an innocent victim, I'm just your princess, remember, Mr. Dragon?"

His eyes clouded over at her question, and he withdrew from her sharply with a snarl. Lucy suffered a brief moment of emptiness and confusion, until her husband snaked his hands around her waist and bodily hauled them both up off the ground. Lucy squealed at the sudden movement, wrapping her legs tightly around her mate in a desperate attempt to keep from falling. Natsu chuckled and pressed her back up against the nearest wall, moving his hands under her thighs to cup her ass and positioning his now-weeping cock at her opening. "Don't worry, dear wife, the dragon won't ever let his princess fall." An electric shock snaked through her body at his words, and when he roughly pushed back inside of her, it threw her over the edge into another orgasm.

Her husband stilled inside of her until her shuddering ceased, then began a new, desperate rhythm once she had finally stilled. The abrasiveness of his scales inside of her overly-sensitive skin set her to a steady keening in time with his strokes. Natsu kissed her, chucking against her lips.

When he broke the kiss, Lucy demanded, "What? What's so funny?"

Natsu gave her a lopsided smile as he replied, "Well, it just struck me that this is a lot like the first time we had sex. Seems kinda fitting to be doing it like this for our first time after getting married."

Unbidden tears pricked Lucy's eyes. She felt another orgasm building inside of her, and managed to gasp out, "Y-yes, you're right…dear…husband…"

Natsu's eyes shot open wide, and after a few more breathless strokes, he demanded roughly, "Say…say that again, Princess."

She grinned wickedly. "What, did you…did you l-like that? You…you like your wife call…ing you…husband?"

He dug his claws into her ass, letting out a roar as he pulsed violently inside of her. Lucy screamed with him as she rode out her final orgasm on her husband's throbbing cock.

When she had finished, Lucy felt her weight go slack against her husband's chest. Despite the strain of Natsu's own release, he steadied his body and held them both up, shuffling them across the room so they could collapse on their bed. Dimly, Lucy was aware of her husband drawing the covers up over her naked body before her exhaustion got the better of her and she feel asleep.

Some hours later, Lucy woke up with a cry, starting straight up in the bed. Shit! How could she have let herself get carried away with sex? Natsu's body…he needed…

She whipped her head around to his spot in the bed, and gasped.

He looked…totally normal.

His horns, wings, scales, claws, all of it…gone. He lay stretched out naked on his stomach next to her, breathing evenly in his sleep. Lucy reached out a shaking hand and smoothed it over his back, feeling only his skin under her questing fingertips, not the rough scales she'd half-expected to encounter. On his left shoulder, his mating mark was the only indication that anything had even happened to his body at all, pulsing gently and giving off a steady heat. Wonderingly, Lucy pressed her lips to the mark, and sent up a silent thanks for her husband's sake. Hot tears leaked from her eyes onto his skin, and she buried her face in him.

Natsu stirred under her drowsily. "Mm? Lucy, what you doing?"

She sniffled. "Nothing."

His head shot up off the pillow, and his voice rung out, all traces of sleep gone. "Bullshit! You're crying! What's wrong, Luce?" He twisted around so he could maneuver his body into an upright position, holding her by her shoulders and trying to catch her eye.

Lucy lifted her head and laughed. "Really nothing, you idiot. I'm just so…so glad that…you're ok…" She trailed off into full-blown sobs of relief, and collapsed onto her mate's naked chest. He wrapped his arms around her as she continued to hiccup out, "I-I was so worried…about you…w-we thought you…you were dying…and…and then, you turned i-into that…and I thought you were…were hurt…and, oh, oh Natsuuuu…I'm just so glad you're o-ok…"

Natsu kissed the top of her head lovingly. "Of course I'm ok, you idiot. I don't care if I have to look like this for the rest of my life. At least it's a life I get to fully spend with you."

Lucy drew back from his arms, tears still prickling her eyes a bit as she looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean? Natsu, didn't you even notice?"

He looked at her blankly. "Notice what?"

She sighed in exasperation, trying to stop the unsteady flow of her tears. "I swear, you're such an idiot sometimes. Natsu, look at yourself. You're totally back to normal now!"

He took one of his arms off of her, and looked down at it with mild curiosity. "Oh. Yeah, look at that, I guess you're right. Cool."

Lucy gaped at him. " _Cool?_ You just went through two total body transformations in one day an all you have to say is _cool?_ "

He tilted his head to one side. "Yeah, what else am I supposed to say?"

She snorted in disbelief. "I don't know, maybe freak out a bit? Yell? Be happy? This isn't exactly normal, you know! It's a big deal!"

Natsu shrugged the shoulder of his free arm. "I dunno, Luce, I just don't really care too much about what my body looks like. As long as you're happy with how it is, I couldn't care less. And you certainly seemed to like my body like that." He gave her a wicked smirk.

She flushed a little. "You idiot, that's not the point. You know I love your body any way it is, because I love _you_. I want you to be healthy."

He gave her his winning smile. "And you should know that I just care about you being healthy. And since we both seem to be just fine now, what's the point in worrying about it?"

Lucy sighed. "I guess you're right. But something about the ceremony definitely seemed to complete the mating ritual for some reason."

Natsu rolled his eyes. "Luce, let it go. It's fine now."

She protested, "But aren't you the least bit curious about what happened and why?"

He looked fully into her eyes, and she was instantly stilled by the depth she saw in them. Then the moment was gone, and he grinned. "Well, dear wife, I guess it's a good thing that you have the rest of our lives to figure it out."

Her heart fluttered at the use of the new nickname he'd given her. She felt her resolve weaken, and returned his smile. "I guess you're right, dear husband."

He beamed, and leaned in to kiss her. "Good. I love you, Lucy."

"And I love you, Natsu."

"Forever, dear wife?"

"Forever, dear husband."


	33. Epilogue

"Nashi, get back here!" Lucy yelled at her daughter.

The salmon-colored head turned around just long enough to flash her signature grin at her mother before whipping back around to continue chasing Grayson down the path out of town.

Lucy sighed and glanced at her other daughter who was walking alongside her in an overly-stately fashion. This was the first time that the Dragneels had allowed their daughters to come along on a mission. They had even agreed to bring along Gray and Juvia's son, after a week of Nashi's pleading. And, true to her fiery nature, as soon as they had set out, Nashi had incited a race with Grayson to see who could make it to the path out of town first. Lucy had smiled a little at the fierce competition. It seemed like some things were genetic.

Luna, however, seemed determined (as usual) to showcase her place as the mature older sister. She had maintained a steady pace beside her mother, and somehow kept a composed look on her face that barely managed to cover the excitement in her sparkling black eyes. Although she hadn't been as boisterous about it as Nashi, she had been just as assertive as her sister when the two had joined forces and argued that they should be allowed to come along on a mission. And while Nashi's fire was insatiable, Luna's subtle determination was just as hard to deny. But, to be honest, as soon as they had asked, the issue was as good as settled. Natsu was nearly incapable of telling his little girls no, especially when they showed the spirit that he identified with so well.

And so here they were, with their little spitfire tumbling along ahead while Natsu yelled at her to show Gray's kid who was boss, and their firstborn walking sedately at their side. The momentous occasion made Lucy think back to when their first girl had been born. She smiled at the memory. The birthing process had gone fairly smoothly with Luna, and she had arrived peacefully nearly 9 months to the day after the wedding of her parents. With her shock of black hair and deep coal-colored eyes, she'd had her father wrapped around her little finger from the day of her birth. They'd enjoyed several quiet, peaceful years with their docile little girl until one day, Nashi had come bursting into their world.

Lucy grimaced at the memory. If Luna's pregnancy had been tranquil, Nashi's had made up for it with a vengeance. From the moment she knew she was pregnant, she'd been plagued with every symptom in the book, culminating in a torturous birthing process. Natsu still didn't like to talk about it. He'd been convinced that Lucy was going to die from the amount of pain she'd been in, and had spent most of the labor roaring at anyone within earshot to do something for his wife, only stopping when he'd gotten a glimpse of their new little girl and fallen in love all over again. Lucy, however, was always amused when thinking back on the whole ordeal. It was just so like Nashi to enter the world, kicking and screaming and demanding attention.

That fiery spirit showed itself now as she hurled insults at her friend as they raced along, with Natsu cheering her on. Lucy shook her head and shot a sidelong glance at Luna. She smiled a little as she noticed the slightly wistful look in the girl's eyes. Lucy felt a pang of sympathy for her eldest daughter. Luna had a hard time allowing herself to leave the protective older sister mindset long enough to let loose and be a kid sometimes.

Lucy cleared her throat, and Luna looked up at her expectantly. "You know, Grayson and Nashi could probably use someone to look out for them and make sure they're not getting in trouble up there. I certainly don't have enough energy to chase them out of town."

Luna's eyes lit up at the prospect of being accorded this responsibility. "Ok, Mama, I'll go make sure they behave!" She took off at a run, easily matching her sister's pace.

Lucy called after her, "Just wait for us once you get to the path!" Under her breath, she mumbled, "Not that I know where that is, anyway."

Beside her, her husband laughed. He'd been very insistent on keeping the mission's topic a secret from his wife. He and the girls had enjoyed many whispered conspiratorial conversations, glancing furtively at their mother and giggling often. Lucy had let it go, seeing how special it made her girls feel, but she couldn't help feeling a little irked at the same time. Why would they be hiding it from her?

Natsu slung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close into his side without breaking their matching strides. "You'll see in a little bit, Starshine. We're almost there. I'm surprised you haven't realized where we're going already."

Lucy pouted. "I don't see how I could know. I'm not a mind reader."

Her mate just laughed again and kissed the top of her head. "Luce, don't worry. I'd never let them pick something dangerous, especially as a first mission."

She narrowed her eyes at him a little. How did he always know what she was thinking? "Are you sure? I mean, Luna is getting fairly proficient as a celestial mage now, but we both know that Nashi is still pretty inexperienced with her magic. What even is Taurus Fire supposed to be, anyway?"

Natsu smiled indulgently at her. "Aw, let her be, Princess. It's not easy to make your own magic combination. She just wants to test it out and see what tweaks to make. The girl's got guts." His smile softened. "Just like her mother."

Lucy snorted at that. Nobody ever said that she was at all like her youngest daughter. "Oh, sure. Nashi's exactly not me, and not at all like a certain dragon slayer who acts EXACTLY THE SAME AS HER. Right."

Her husband was shaking his head. "That's not what I meant. She's a wonderful strong girl, and will definitely grow up to be a strong woman, just like you. She's go the best example in the world, after all."

Lucy ground to a halt, right in the middle of the alley they were walking down. She blinked up at her mate with tears in her eyes, and gently reached up to touch his cheek. He smiled back and bent down to give her a wordless, tender kiss. When he broke away, they resumed their pace again, a bit slower this time.

After a few paces, Natsu said, almost casually, "You know, Luce, there's no one I'd rather have this adventure with than you." She looked up at him, eyes wide with surprised love, as he continued, "I loved you for so long before we got together, that I'd pretty much given up hope on ever being with you. But ya know, there was always a little part of me that just knew. I knew you were for me. After all, you're my only destiny that there could be."

Lucy swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to deny the tears forming. "What the hell, Natsu? What's all this about, anyway?" she demanded.

He pulled her to a halt, pointing ahead of them with a lopsided grin. "Well, when I was picking out a mission with the girls, the one that we ended up choosing just made me think about all the stuff that happened when we got together. And I couldn't help but think about how lucky I am that you chose me."

Lucy looked up at the path where he was indicating, and saw with a small gasp that their children had led them to the house of Maven Tyndall, to the beginning of their adventure together as a couple. She laughed and planted a solid kiss on his lips, ignoring the kids yelling at them to stop being gross and catch up. She pulled away and looked up at her husband, smiling. "You're not lucky, Natsu. This is just the only way it could be. Like you said, you're my only destiny."

FIN


End file.
